Lightcycle

Last year a lighting design consultancy put on a competition as part of the Melbourne design festival.
It was called lightcycle, and you had to make a light, starting off with just a lampholder/cord assembly and a compact fluro lamp. This was my entry, the FforR lamp.
It works by recycling old acrylic from signs and old recessed fluorescent fittings. From there the material if applied to a simple framework. Its simplicity lets it be manufactured in a sheltered workshop. Alas I didn't win, but I had fun, and actually sold the light I entered on the night. Not a bad consolation.
Here are the rest of the entries.
http://www.electrolight.com.au/lightcycle-competition/lightcycle-entries
I hope they put the comp on again.

Re-animations

I've often looked for the other, lighting-based opportunities withing everyday and unconventional objects. I like scavenging through junkyards etc..
This is an internally lit table lamp I made back in 2001. I found an old, massive set of platform scales, maybe from a butchers, in aback block of unused land in North Perth. I salvaged some parts from it, and combined it with some other bits I had lying around. I put a light inside with a cord etc...
To change the lamp you unscrew the top and lift the glass off.

One day my then girlfriend and I were looking through an old medical warehouse in Northbridge. There was some pretty scary and very random stuff around, including some very unsafe wooden floors. But I did manage to find an old hospital/medicine trolley, which I painted and made a drop-in light box for. A little shelf below for books.
It was a great accessory around the house - with a dimmer attached; and I'd put coloured globes in it as well...great for parties/late nights..

Material rave 01 - Acrylic

I love acrylic. From day dot I have used this material. Its transmits, bends, reflects, colours the light, and so much more.
It comes in many thicknesses, colours, textures...and on and on.
It can be cut, bent, formed, routed, sanded, flamed, polished, heated. I've got to say it is without a doubt the most versatile and useful material I have worked with as a lighting designer.
My workspace is full of the stuff - i can't throw it away...i hang onto those offcuts, hoping that I will one day use them. sometimes I do.
The majority of my work involves acrylic in some form.
It's virtually unbreakable.

Helios Light 1999

This is another one of my Final Year projects.
It combined many ideas I wanted to explore.
+Light
+Display
+Graphical
+Textural.

Starting at the back(!)... The textural aspect i came to from walking along, looking at the sidewalk. I loved the idea that the pavement had a 'record' or memory, built up in its layers of grit and dirt that was ground into it. I wanted to explore this concept further, and so I played with the medium of concrete. I wanted to use real full-sized pavers, but after finding out thier weight, and talking to someone who worked with and cut the things...i decided on using a visual representation of the material. In the end I used a concrete slurry over a MDF substrate, which was then bolted to the acrylic front of the light.
I figured that the front panels could be adapted, depending on the interior it went with. I used a obvious brush stroke in applying the material, which then gave the work some visual direction.

The graphical aspect came about in the central box, which slotted into a cavity i created in the opal acrylic section. I wanted this box to allow the light to be able to have many lives; to display 2-D or 3-D. The clear acrylic box in the centre has a front sleeve about 2mm thick, which you slip a negative or positive image into. In this sense it became a lightbox, or display box, which the user could reconfigure as they wanted.

Display- The acrylic box in the centre was open at the top. Fill the box with whatever you liked... seedpods, fluffy toys , cornflakes, torn up paper. Put the box back in, and see your stuff lit up and on display!!

Of course its a light...it's on this blog innit?
Like 4x18w T8 fluros ok.
It weighed quite a bit in the end...I gave it to a friend, but she is famous in NY now, so who knows what happened to it.
I've still got the plans if anyone wants one.
I loved it and thought i'd sell one to everyone.

conception

Designfilter is primarily about light.
I experiment with materials, and how they interact with the medium of light.
Graphics are also an important aspect of my life; As are sculpture, photography, and reuse/reinterpretation of found objects.
On this blog you will see some of my work, along with other random stuff and design experimentation.
Lets start at the beginning - well almost.
Ultralounge was a friends cafe in Perth, Western Australia.
For one of my final year assignment in my Industrial Design Studies, I did this lighting/signage/graphics installation.
It combined a number of my loves - Lighting, Graphics, Sculpture, Design..
Sadly the Cafe is no longer..or the light either...