Jessica Sheng - Lamp

This desk lamp is designed to maximize working space while providing moody and aesthetic ambient lighting.

2023

Overview

This was the final project for my Product Design class, ACAD-245. The task was to design a light source, and as a college student, what would be more fitting than a desk lamp for those late-night study sessions? I also could not get the idea of creating something culturally representative out of my head with the Mid-Autumn Festival just passing by, so I decided to incorporate some Chinese elements into the design.

This lamp is designed to provide a warm and aesthetic ambient light for the user’s dorm room while also maximizing space on their desk.

class project - acad-245

team size - 5

tools - blender, laser cutter

Problem

Many desk lamps tend to take up a lot of space, which can be a problem for college students with limited space in their dorms. Additionally, the lighting from these lamps can be too harsh, which can be distracting and uncomfortable for the user.

Solution

This lamp is designed to have storage space for small items to help the user keep their desk organized and make use of the space it takes up. The lighting on this lamp is also arranged to be diffused to provide a more comfortable light for the user.

Since this was the final project and the professor wanted to give us space to create something that we were passionate about, we were given a lot of freedom in terms of what we ended up doing with the design. I, along with many of my classmates wanted to create something that was more personal and artistic. This definitely made it harder to create something that fell within the constraints of the research we did, but going through that process at least helped us understand what was already out there and what we could do to make our product stand out.

In true experimental college fashion, we were actually tasked with using AI image generators to help us in our sketching and ideation process! This was a really interesting experience-by using AI to render sketches, it ended up becoming an exchange of ideas between me and the AI, iterating upon whatever it spits out. This definitely helped me come up with some ideas that I would not have thought of otherwise.