ilo

Lead Designers Shirley Nguyen

Entry Description

ilo is a portable, playful lamp designed to enhance the story-time experience for children by encouraging tactile interaction and adapting to the desired usage scenario for settings such as children’s bedrooms, elementary school classrooms, or local libraries. The primary goal of ilo is to incorporate and encourage the sense of play, productivity, and comfort of reading.

The lamp features an illuminating core, with adjustable, revolving panels inspired by an armadillo shell. The panels allow for the redirection of light, to adapt to independent or group story-time, or to be used as a night-light. For independent reading, the lamp’s panels can be adjusted to focus the light directly on the child’s book. With group reading, the lamp serves as an imaginary “campfire” for the children to gather around, with the light pointed upwards, while the teacher reads aloud. Night-light mode allows for a peek of light to shine through when the panels enclose the illuminating core.

Insights for the design decisions were gathered through research methods including literature review and an expert interview, focused on the children’s zone in libraries and technical lighting requirements. The choice of creating manually-adjustable panels, a tactile arcade button, the warm 2000k temperature of the light, and the flexibility in the usage scenarios, were done with these findings in mind.

Sustainability Approach

ilo is designed with a removable, cylindrical compartment that houses all of its electrical components, including the USB-C charging port. This allows for a simplified disposal process by ensuring the separation of the plastic and electronic components.

The design is also able to grow with the child. Its form is simplistic and may appeal to children beyond the pre-school and kindergarten levels. The two circular, teal end-caps are removable and may be exchanged for various colors and shapes, as well.