Anna Herrmann presented her thesis Joan at Beckmans Designhögskola in close collaboration with Svenskt Tenn 2019. She sketched out her flexible light fixture in search of the right cozyness and work lighting when she created a new interior for her mother. After first studying at the University of Aachen, Germany, she applied to the more artistic programme at Beckmans Design Academy where she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in 2019. At the same time, she became one of the school's IKEA fellows, a company she still collaborates with on various projects. Anna Herrmann runs her design studio in Munich, where she is also studying interior design at the Bavarian city's Academy of Arts.

In addition to lighting design and interior architecture, she has designed several children's products where she is able to combine a playful expression with a freer creative process compared to conventional design. With both German and Swedish origins, Anna Herrmann has an open relationship with the Scandinavian design philosophy, she wants to contribute more colour after decades of black, white and monochrome.

'We can't just keep producing and producing design products In a world with shrinking resources. The things we create should be meaningful, and why not also playful?'

Anna Herrmann

‍

Alexander Lervik is fascinated by light in all its forms, not surprising given that he lives in a country where darkness dominates much of the year. Three years after graduating from Beckman's School of Design, he presents Bright Handle, a door handle that glows an idle green or a busy red. The Sense Light Swing fibre-optic light-up swing is equally playful and at the same time self-evident. With Rainbow, he builds a lampshade of 300 tiny LED lights integrated into the shade, while LED Light Bulb brings a new expression to the traditional incandescent bulb shape in the form of a small LED-lit 3D-printed ballerina inside. Experimentally exploring constantly on the border between the artistic and the commercial, AlexanderLervik has in both lighting and furniture design pushed the boundaries of what is possible.

His light creations, the most extreme of which is MyBrain, a lamp 3D-printed from an MRI of his own brain, are represented at the National Museum in Stockholm, the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg and several other places. Colour is a strong design element in all his designs, and by creating a new lighting company he wants to bring colour to an overly conservative lighting industry.

'Surely we can be more playful in Scandinavian design and surely we need more colour in the design industry around the world! I am fully convinced that my artistic experiments make my commercial products even better.'

Alexander Lervik

‍