LuminAid
Home Lighting | Product Line Design Exploration
I led a design exploration to envision how LuminAID, known for its innovative portable solar-powered lighting, might expand into the home market.
I led a design exploration project to expand LuminAid’s product line into the home market. I began by evaluating their existing product and brand. I identified key design attributes to evolve forward and establish a cohesive design language. They are: A love of geometric form, simplicity, affordability, and a joyful unboxing experience. I then added attributes for a home product line extension including; aesthetic versatility for indoor and outdoor settings, integrating color, material, finish, and illumination explorations. With this in mind, I generated a series of innovative concepts.
While LuminAID shifted its strategic focus, this exploratory design project yielded valuable insights into leveraging design and brand equity for new market opportunities.
In 2025, aspects of this project were revisited and reimagined as a Maddux Design Studio Exploration.
Design Concept Collection
Fan Pendant Lamp
Influenced by the beauty of sea urchins, mushroom gills, and the construction of pleats and fans, the disc-shaped fluted lamp unfolds for easy user assembly. Its weather-resistant PET coated fabric and solar power allow for versatile indoor and outdoor placement. A self-contained solar panel, cable mount, and LED system complete the lamp.
Geometric Pendant Lamp
Influenced by origami and architecture and featuring precise folds this globe-shaped pendant lamp folds flat and unfolds for easy user assembly. Its weather-resistant PET material and solar power allows for versatile indoor and outdoor placement. A self-contained solar panel, cable mount, and LED system complete the lamp.
Tabletop Gem Lamps
A collection of geometric-colored tabletop lights influenced by cut gems and the soft transparency of gummy candy. Casting a soft glow through the colored silicone, each lamp is weighted and appears rigid yet has a soft pliable nature, designed to delight the user when held in the hand.
Organic Geometry Sconce
Inspired by the form and attributes of sea barnacles. I created an outdoor solar lamp that attaches to walls and fences illuminating and enhancing outdoor spaces. Made of semi-translucent resin with a central solar panel, the lights cast a soft glow on gardens, walkways, and outdoor spaces. Designed to be arranged organically or in a magnetic cluster along a wall.
Form Inspiration
I found inspiration for my form development in the balance and beauty of geometric & organic forms found in nature.
The symmetry of sea urchins and the geometric folds of origami, the clustering of barnacles, the gills of a mushroom, and the folded pleats of a skirt as well as the work of Buckminster Fuller and the vision of I.M. Pei
Color, Material, and Illumination Exploration
I looked to earth and gem-like colors of colored glass, crystals, and resins for color and illumination inspiration, as well the subtle opacities grades of material thickness and textures of plastics, and coated papers. I explored how light illuminates through the folds, curves, and creases of paper and fabric enhancing forms and creating shadows.
