D’light: an innovative lighting design with a transformable lampshade

‘D’light’ is a kinetic lighting system that has a transformable lampshade using a flexible honeycomb structure.

Article  |  Spring 2014

At the Department of Industrial Design, the ID+IM Design Laboratory led by Prof. Sangmin Bae has introduced an innovative kinetic lighting system named ‘D’light’ (a compound word of “donative” and “light”), which has a transformable lampshade using a flexible honeycomb structure.

By simply rotating the lampshade with the small handles attached to the edge, the user can easily change its shape in diverse styles. D’light also provides different moods of lighting since the intensity and direction of light changes as the shape of the lampshade transforms.

Furthermore, D’light implicitly represents sharing and love. As it changes from the conventional lamp shape into a heart-shaped lamp, the surroundings get brighter, which metaphorically expresses that love brightens the world by sharing.

D’light was designed to be the fifth product of the ‘Nanum’ (note: Korean word for ‘sharing’) project, a donation project that is funded through new product developments. As D’light was designed and produced solely for the purpose of sharing, 100% of its profits are donated to provide educational scholarships to impoverished children.

Recently D’light won two top international design awards, IDEA 2013 (USA) and Good Design Best 100 (Japan), proving its high quality design and beautiful message.

Prof. Sangmin Bae (Department of Industrial Design)

For more information, visit http://idim.kaist.ac.kr