Creative Lighting Products Highlighted at London Design Show

Taiwan's innovative lamps win praise and awards at 100% Design London

Detekt Design's Conus Lamp is special in both external appearance and material.

The annual 100% Design London show attracts designers, buyers, manufacturers, and art lovers from Europe and the rest of the world to its four-day run of displays of world-class contemporary furnishing design, architectural design, and other interior design products.

Unlike most shows of its kind, 100% Design London does not accept individual exhibitors; participants have to team up with others from the same country and organize a national pavilion in which to display their products. This year's show, held on Sept. 23-26, 2010, had 16 national pavilions-including, for the first time, a Taiwan Pavilion that surprised everybody by becoming one of the most popular attractions at the show.

Under the theme of Oriental Spirit, the Taiwan Pavilion presented nearly 20 furnishing products and artworks, mostly featuring a creative combination of modern technology and cultural tradition. Among them were two lighting products: Conus Lamp by Detekt Design & Technology Taipei, and Jelly Fish Lamp by the Yantouch Corp.

It's an honor for these Taiwan products to be displayed at this prestigious London design show, which sets strict criteria for the items it accepts, said Kuo Cheng-hsiung, consultant to the Creative Cultural Industry Division of the General Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of China. Kuo organized the Taiwanese delegation to the show in line with the government's policy of promoting the creative cultural industry as one of the future pillars of economic development.

According to Kuo, over 40 mass media organizations, including prominent ones like Wallpaper, Blueprint, and Elle, sent reporters and editors to interview Taiwanese designers at the Taiwan Pavilion. Almost 200 designers, architects, and retailers from around the world also showed up.

According to Kuo, the show's manager, Peter Massey, praised the Taiwanese delegation as demonstrating a good combination of modern technology and Oriental culture. Kuo insisted that he would continue organizing Taiwanese delegations to international shows as a means of presenting Taiwanese design talent to the global market.

Conus Lamp by Detekt Design

The Conus Lamp, from Detekt Design & Technology Taipei, is special in both external appearance and internal structure. Its shape resembles that of the Conus caracteristicus, a rare sea snail species found only in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Taiwan that features arabesque curves on its shell. It's rare for people to see such a snail in Asia, not to mention Europe or America, said Leicester Huang, a co-designer of the lamp. When we saw the snail for the first time, we decided to use its shell pattern on lamp shades because it looks naturally elegant, This idea made the Conus Lamp one of the most eye-catching items at the London show.

The Earth Lamp of Detekt Design presents a rich taste of Oriental culture.

The Conus Lamp is also unique in its material, a kind of the plastic which is not widely used in manufacturing but is employed mainly for making prototypes. This plastic is used for making prototypes because of its special characteristics of high plasticity and ductibility, Huang explained. When we were using it for making prototypes of other products, we found that it was a good material for making lamp shades because its high plasticity and ductibility allow it to be made extra thin for better transparency. This quality has contributed to the popularity of the Conus Lamp, making its illumination bright and elegantly soft. Detekt Design is among the few companies, if not the only one, which have successfully applied this material to commercial products.

Detekt Design has branch offices in Australia, Hongkong, and China, in addition to its headquarters office in Taipei. It develops customized designs for clients besides designing for its own products-like the Conus Lamp.

The company focuses on the presentation of Oriental culture through modern technology. In addition to the Conus Lamp, Detekt Design has an earlier Earth Lamp with a shade sporting patterns similar to those of windows used in ancient Chinese architecture, presenting a very rich flavor of the Orient.

Yantouch's Jelly Fish Lamp

Yantough Corporation, the producer of the Jelly Fish Lamp, was founded two years ago with a strong R&D team made up of IC and computer engineers. It's an honor to have our Jelly Fish Lamp displayed at the London design show, said Nick Lee, marketing director of the company. Lee reported that Yantouch has received orders for the Jelly Fish Lamp from several European buyers, and its sales promotion has been boosted by permission to display the lamp in the souvenir area of the Louvre Museum in Paris. The company is in talks with the Mathmos Company of the U.K., which runs an extensive sales network for special lighting products in Europe, about cooperation in marketing the Jelly Fish Lamps there.

The Jelly Fish Lamp, which features a cover that resembles a jellyfish and has the ability to present over 10,000 different color combinations, was also a winner of German's red dot design award in 2010.

Yantouch has successfully entered the European lighting market with its Jelly Fish Lamp.

Yantough, established in 2008, is run by a team of senior IC engineers who gave up two-decade careers in semiconductor OEM production to pursue new careers in the LED lighting industry. Their mission is to create innovative and high-quality lighting products to be marketed under Taiwanese brand names in the international market.