Awesome Lighting

Sure, it’s not even Halloween yet, but it’s never too early to start decorating for Christmas, right? Actually, it is. Keep these R2-D2 light strings in your closet until after Turkey Day.

We prefer to call it the Aviator Lamp, because that’s what this is – a light bulb surrounded by 40 pairs of mirrored aviators, which cast a kaleidoscope of shadows when the lamp is lit.

These sleek OO!2 Circular lights from Teun Fleskens emit ambient light from the edges of the circles and can be used as hanging or tabletop lamps. Offered in acrylic or wood veneer finish.

West Elm challenged 2 teams of ID students at the Pratt Institute to create eco-friendly office furniture using FSC certified materials; the resulting Pratt home office collection oozes responsible chic.

Yves Béhar’s striking LED Leaf light for Herman Miller allows the user to control the intensity and light color (warm or cool) by sliding a finger along a groove in the lamp base. (Thanks Ron!)

Valentina Trimani’s brilliantly simple concept design combines the utility of a bookmark with low-voltage OLED illumination, so you can read your books while lying in the darkness of your bedroom.

Australian designer Kenan Wang based the hand-powered Eco-Twinkle light on old school manual pencil sharpeners. The light can be suspended from a string and has a foldable handle.

Made by UK-based artist Finn Magee, Flat Light has an embedded LED that makes it light up. Originally part of Magee’s Flat Life series, Flat Light is now on a limited edition run at the Moss Gallery.

This unusual lighting from QisDesign lets you magnetically snap together individual color-changing LED “crystal” pods to create unique fixtures to suit your liking.

In this projection-mapped installation by Alcatel-Lucent at the last Mobile World Congress, the public was invited into a cube filled with color and light to witness “transforming the mobile experience.”

Vincent Moreau and Kevin Riou have created Firefly, interactive lighting with behavior similar to an insect cloud. The light alternately disperses, merges and evolves through visitor movements.

Students at Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland converted the dorm windows of their building facade into their 4th entertaining light show complete with music and animation.

Guitar players looking for a way to stand out on stage, take a look at these LED picks from Santa Cruz Light Wells. The picks can even be used as a light-up metronome to keep you on beat.

From the the whole-is-much-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts file: Craighton Berman’s Coil Lamp, made from a 100′ extension cord that’s wrapped around a laser-cut clear acrylic form.

This concept light switch shows a map your home, with the location of lights indicated by light bulb icons. Pressing any of the icons turns on the corresponding light. What a bright idea.

There is a certain imperfect and asymmetric appeal in the harlequin-patterned Sleeping Biscuit lamp, made of unglazed porcelain, from Moscow-based designer Dima Loginoff.