The London Design Festival is celebrating ten years with the Victoria and Albert Museum as the official LDF Hub, the world’s leading museum of art and design. We have selected some lighting brands that we think you should visit, from new product releases to award nominations, they will not disappoint.
LDF – Where it all began…
The Festival was created by Sir John Sorrell and Ben Evans in 2003. Being a creative place, Sorrell and Evans decided to build-on London’s existing design activity, their concept was to create an annual event that would promote the city’s creativity, drawing in the country’s greatest thinkers, practitioners, retailers and educators to a deliver an unmissable celebration of design.
The launch of the first Festival took place at Bloomberg on 25 March 2003, with a huge show of support from design, education, government and London organisations. 16 years later, this vision remains ever strong, last year 450,000 individuals visited the festival from a whopping 75 countries.
In addition, London Design Festival helped drive a total of 173,250 visits to the V&A over the Festival period with 22% of those surveyed saying they had never visited the museum before and were driven there by the Festival.
For LDF18, visitors can explore a variety of special displays and installations throughout the museum, complemented by an extensive programme of events, daily tours, and workshops from the Global Design Forum, which attracted 45 speakers from 13 countries and 2,800 visitors.
What to look out for?
Flos – Arrangements by Michael Antissaides
A collection of modular chandeliers designed by Michael Anastassiades for Flos has been nominated in the Product category of the Beazley Designs of the Year. Arrangements are displayed at the Design Museum in four individual configurations of one, two, three and four lighting modules, like jewellery chains, hinting at the endless possible creative combinations that this innovative, sophisticated and highly technological design project can offer.
Innermost – Kepler
Named after the German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer who discovered the Supernova, Johannes Kepler, this luminaire is reminiscent of black holes and portals from science-fiction. Cohda has used highly innovative materials for this design, multiplying single LEDs over a large thin surface to widely refract the light and give the illusion of infinity.
The fine material, which has been likened to hosiery from the fashion industry, creates a fascinating effect, like a kaleidoscope of light rays. The unit is adjustable at installation with 350 degrees of movement around the X-axis and 360 on the Y-axis, meaning any position is possible. The unit can then be locked into place to maintain the configuration and position. We believe that the Kepler is an amazing piece, but if you form a cluster of Kepler lights, the results are truly magnificent.
Ochre – Medussa Bloom
OCHRE are delighted to exclusively launch their latest creation ‘Medusa Bloom’.
Resembling a group of jellyfish, each piece of optical glass is hand-blown with a shade of delicate grey pigment at its heart all of which is illuminated by one LED. Each drop is delicately suspended from its ceiling canopy.
Bert Frank – Revolve Pendant and Launch of the Rift Wall Light
The elegant Revolve pendant casts a warm glow through its opal diffuser, light also escapes through the top brass feature of the pendant lamp. Many collections from Bert Frank need to be seen to be fully-appreciated, be sure to visit them at Stand F34.
We are looking forward to witnessing the Rift Wall Light first-hand. More information and images on the Rift Wall Light coming soon…
