Florian Kräutli is a design student at Eindhoven who caught our attention by leaving a simple comment that held a lot of meaning in regards to the name of Castor Canadensis’ ‘Not a f**king Droog Light’. Kräutli has several interesting lighting projects of his own under his belt, so we thought we’d ask him about his own illuminating ideas. We often ask established or emerging designers a few questions, but it is also useful to get some perspective from someone at a different point on the design timeline.





Some of your recent projects have involved lighting in a variety of ways, like your Room Divider, above, and the Reading Light. One is more of an installation, the other more practical – which of these inspires you more?
The attraction of installation objects is that they have a prominent influence on the space they're in and that you as a designer are in control of that space. But I think I'm more interested in objects that leave more open, put the user in control. Objects that can be combined with others, make the user play.

Reading lamp.

...and we see that you certainly have a sense of humour if Ljusvaen, the illuminating and illuminated plush toy lamp, and Puppet Lamps are anything to go by – do you think this sense of humour must be put aside to be commercially viable?
On the contrary! Of course a product has to be more than just funny. It has to function and to meet peoples’ aesthetic demands, but nowadays product also have to offer something more. This can be humour. Or any other emotion. I got feedback from many people who liked the Ljusvaen. They all call it different names like "light cuddly elephant", "illuminating plush Easter bunny" or as you call it "plush toy lamp". Nobody can really name what it is, but I think it tickles very elementary emotions like comfort, to snuggle against something, and it gives light, a symbol of warmth and safety. A healthy portion of humour can make a product attractive, as long as it is intelligent humour and not just a joke.





The world is already full of 'stuff' – as a designer, why do you choose to create more?
I think the world is also full of changes. As a designer it should not be your task to just make "new stuff", variations on existing objects, but to react on these changes and answer new possibilities, problems and desires. Last week I was at a presentation by Marti Guixé. He's someone who realized this change in the status of a designer early and reacted on it by declaring himself as an ex-designer. I think future designer generations already have to be ex-designers. We should stop thinking of a designer as someone who gives shape and colour to a product and see a designer more as an inventor, visionary, freak.