"There is a fascination with light and what it can bring
to an environment," says young designer Samuel Wilkinson in
describing the driving force behind some of his award winning
designs. The Plumen 001, which the designer worked on for almost
two years with manufacturer Hulger was, he says "a fantastic
project which explored the idea of an aesthetic lightbulb." It was
a challenging brief, to give form to something new and redesign the
energy-saving CFL light bulb. "You didn't know what was right or
wrong and we were pretty much going back and forth for some time to
finalise it." The end result of twisting the bulb's glass tubes is
a shape he describes as 'organised complexity,' complemented by a
soulful yellow tint when lit. The Plumen 001 led to Wilkinson
collecting the grand prize from the London Design Museum of ‘2011
Design of the Year’ and the highly coveted ‘Black pencil’ from the
D&AD, but he says his career has only just
begun...
Wilkinson learned his craft at Ravensboure
College of Art & Design in 2002, graduating in furniture and
related product design. "It was a great college and I chose it
because it had great workshops. It's nice to make, get your hands
into the material." At the time, "Ravensbourne was in Chislehurst
near London, set in a purpose built modernist campus in parkland."
It has now moved next to the O2 centre but Wilkinson fondly
remembers the workshops, "which is not always the case these days,
where lots of universities are cutting down on workshop
availability and making it more digital. It is good to have a
balance of those things."
Six months after college, Wilkinson got an internship at
Fitch:London, a big branding agency, followed by a few other
leading consultancies such as Tangerine, PearsonLloyd, and Conran
"working on projects like transport and furniture. More of the
industrial design I really wanted to get into." Gravitating towards
design came naturally, "Art wasn't my best subject at school, I was
more maths and physics. I suppose it is more a technical outlook,
that's why I like to find order in my design. I found as I got
older, I could however bring my artistic side into that. I was
quite visual as a child and am dyslexic as lots of designers are,
you kind of gravitate towards making things, patterns, visuals,
design based types of work."
It is very important for design to have
life and energy, "the ideal is to create character and soul in the
object, while also have functionality, sustainability in terms of
durability and quality, so that it holds interest." It helps that
his training in furniture design has given him solid grounding in
ergonomics and visual balance, "There are so many subtle facets.
You can design two objects in a very similar way, but one may just
have that something special that can push it that little bit
further."
The studio in hackney has shelves littered
with designs, lights and intricate little paper and 3d printed
furniture mock-ups. Picking up a piece of wood, "this was the
initial stage of the Hoof table for Danish company &tradition.
We were playing around with the bandsaw and making different
patterns, realising when you cut it in three or four ways you get
this pencil type reference." The table is less pencil orientated
however, "we took the reference of that and formulised it a little
bit more,