TIM LAHAISE ARCHITECT
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
Heljus: The Work From Home Lamp
As part of the final semester of my Masters programme I chose to undertake a product design elective as an opportunity to test my design skills in a different set of circumstances. Due to the ongoing pandemic and lockdown, the brief for the project was centred around “up-cycling” everyday household items, taking account for the lack of access to the university’s workshop. As such I decided to take this theme a step further, and directly try to solve a problem for a demographic that had arisen from the pandemic itself: the work from home market.
​
When the Covid-19 pandemic sent the world into lockdown office workers had to rapidly adapt to a work-from-home environment, relying on emails and online video calls to communicate. For many people, particularly young people, the conditions of their home office setup are not well adapted for the required working conditions. In business and life in general, clear communication is essential, and while video conferencing may satisfy the basic requirement of verbal communication; poor lighting, video quality or internet connection can make it incredibly difficult to communicate non-verbally.
While there’s not much design can do to solve internet connection or video quality issues, there is a potential for design intervention to solve the lighting problem. Thus my aim was to design a lighting product that can be used to effectively light people’s face and body for use during online video conferencing, helping to improve non-verbal communication for the work-from-home market. The product had to be small and convenient for tight working conditions and adjustable to allow for people of different heights and seating positions. Critically the light had to be soft and even to avoid harsh shadows which distort the detail of the user’s face. Thus I set about designing a miniaturised version of a softbox to sit upon a worker's desk.
Through an iterative design process I was able to continually improve upon the strength and effectiveness of the design until the final product was achieved.
​
