Night-Light
11.12.2020
First explorations.
Attempt 1: My lightbulb burnt out. I now need a new lightbulb.
I didn’t post in Miro or complete a Medium post yesterday because I misunderstood what we were supposed to do. I though we were just supposed to research ideas of what our light’s context is usually like (as in, what lights used to comfort people during their sleep are usually designed like). A few other students understood it this way as well. So I tried to start as we are in class right now (I’m still listening! Just working at the same time) and my bulb immediately got hot, and burnt out within 30 seconds.
I think I’ll use a more eco-friendly bulb, the one in my closet. But I also don’t want that one to burn out as well.
In-class prompt, how our space makes us feel: It makes me feel calm, like thinking about my prompt make me feel like taking a nap and going to sleep. I’m not very familiar with night lights though, I only had one for a few years as a kid, and it was a plastic Disney princess themed one. So these are the only kind of night light designs I really know of. When I think of this prompt I think of quirky designs like fluorescent mushrooms, woodland animals, or the moon, stars, and clouds.
Attempt 2:
Okay, I used the one in my closet, and it didn’t keel over within half a minute. It still got worryingly hot though, so I’ll try to find another lightbulb with less wattage so that I’m not sweating while working both from the heat and from the anxiety that I will have bigger problems on my hands.
Here’s a fun fact: My current closet lightbulb (the one shown here) is a bright daylight bulb— This is so that I could record the how-to project with nice lighting. I think the next bulb I’d use for this project should be warmer, for comfort… like a fuzzy blanket.
My cardstock has a yellow tint when it’s layered. I’d rather it have a purple tint like some others had.
To be honest, I was actually a little confused on the purpose of these experiments. Other people also used different paper materials as well — but why did we do this? Doesn’t the project require white cardstock only? Oh well. At least it was fun. This paper had a nice color to it.
The first set of spiral sticky notes had too few. The second version was able to wrap all the way around the bulb, and the colors (I’m not sure where the purple is coming from) are more vibrant. Then in the last picture (another angle of the second one), the purple isn’t appearing. Still, there are distinct bands of white and blue light.
Finally we had this. It was honestly just for fun to see how much it would block the light from above. If had to redo this I’d focus more on how these would translate into my project, so I’d do more layering experiments to see how many papers I need for the kind of diffused light I would want.
11.16.2020
Well, this is embarrassing.
Okay, I knew my designs were really basic. These basically serve as a starting point of working with layers and adhesives. But man, do they look bad next to the other projects in Miro.
Both my designs were similar, but I wanted a level of experimentation between them. This ended up not completely happening, though. For the clouds design, I added an extra unplanned layer. This is because the glue looked disgusting and I needed to cover it up so that I could look at my lamp without cringing.
In the Waves design, the curves showed up a lot better than in the Clouds one. For this one, I used tape, which was really ineffective at closing the gap. I used so many layers of tape that I lost count, and it was still struggling against the paper. Between the papers I used the Elmer’s Disappearing Purple Glue Stick, which in the end was actually more effective than the hot glue, which was unexpected.
Both my sketch models had this problem where there was a distinct part of where the design became less clear. I’m not sure what exactly is the cause of this, but I think it’s the layers of paper not completely bending in the same way.
I don’t know if maybe it looks too boring. I like that there’s a sort of reveal of the design when the light is turned on, but the outside doesn’t give you any hint of that.
I didn’t intend for the Clouds design to be so foggy but here we are. At first I hated how it looked, but now I think it makes sense with the concept. For this one I used hot glue which I have no prior experience with. The main problem with the hot glue is that it’s way too gloopy and bumpy, so the paper layers weren’t laying flat, and looks really gross when it’s showing!
This one looks smoother than the Waves, but only because I added an extra layer. Without it, you’d see the texture of the glue and how thick the closure is.
11.18.2020
For this iteration we were told to make multiple designs and sketch models. I knew I wouldn’t be able to complete any of them within a 30 minute time limit like what was recommended, and I ended up creating the nesting lights lamp, organic layers lamp, and one that’s sort of a combination between the lotus and lantern designs. The last one was made pretty hurriedly since it was getting late. I also didn’t make a base like I had planned.
The organic forms light is honestly my favorite one. I love the color it produces, but are we allowed to use newsprint in the final presentation? Whenever I ask my classmates there are sort of mixed responses. I think this lamp fits the best within my criteria of “How can I make something that isn’t obviously a lamp,” and producing a lamp that embodies organic forms.
This was the last lamp I produced this day. It’s made up of scrap pieces of paper since I had so many left over. I had actually meant for this to be shaped into a sphere, but I realized quickly that that wasn’t going to happen with the method I was using. I was really interested in making a lamp in a sphere shape, like the marble design I made, but I didn’t want to make anything that was basically just copying instructions that I saw online.
This design is really simple, but I like the intention I had for this to be adjustable for the user. I think maybe I could implement this into the organic layers lamp by having some of the the layers able to flip upwards to adjust the brightness of the lamp.
11.23.2020
Differences:
The new version has 3 layers it the sides instead of just one layer to dim the brightness. This makes it more optimal for sleeping.
The new version is smaller; Past was 18cm tall, New is 14cm tall. Past was 11.5cm wide, New is 9cm wide. This might seem like not much of a change, but it is noticeably smaller and so I think it had more of a “comforting” feeling to it.
Both versions have 6 layers of organic forms cut in newsprint, with 3 big layers and 3 medium layers. The new version is built so that you can flip up the 3 medium layers to adjust the brightness as you please. This isn’t very effective because the layers don’t stay up at the moment.
My teddy bear’s name is Osito. I’ve had it since I was a baby. I don’t actually sleep with Osito at night (it sits up in my room), but I thought it would be a cute prop. The seashell was placed next to the lamp to demonstrate what kind of shadows are produced.
For improvements, if my peers like that you can flip up the layers to have 2 modes of brightness, I’d add a method of keeping those layers flipped upwards to truly have my lamp with 2 brightness options built in.
12/1/2020
Changes based on peer review.
Differences: New version is more circular rather than rectangular so that it doesn’t look like a “scary portal”; it now looks like a flower, or an amoeba. But, the shadows at the edges are now more obvious.
The main issue that was raised was that the Past version’s triangle shape was too “angular and aggressive.” So that the organic forms on the front could match the back more, I made the back more of a half circle shape, but my peers (today) think the lines on the side don’t match. They do enjoy the colors though, so next time I’ll make the sides a solid peachy color.
The side ended up being an oblong shape instead of nicely circular, but even if it was circular I don’t know if I would like it. I don’t like the base at all, and I can’t figure out how to implement the lightbulb in a different way while still maintaining the point of this concept.
12.3.2020
I should go to office hours more.
I think the improvement is so drastic, it looks like I had an epiphany. Really, Stacie just showed me a few ideas for how to design my layers concept more 3 dimensionally. When she said that my past version reminded her of a horseshoe crab, that actually inspired me — when you look at this from below, I think it really does resemble a horseshoe crab. It has a flat “stomach” where the bulb is held, so that the light emitted from below isn’t from a naked bulb.
It reminds my parents of a jellyfish, which I love. To me it looks like a pile of tissues. But it works.
I used my mom’s bed + bedside table instead of my own because the table by my bed is really tall, but that ended up not really mattering since I didn’t include the bed in these photos (it was included in the video). I’m just sad that I find this countertop so ugly (sorry Mom).
