Lightbulb Moment

The folding paper design of ZeedLight’s Tapermoon is out of this world (by Deborah Wang)

While some designers ideate at a desk, others come up with an entire collection on the go. ZeedLight founder Bernhard Dietz describes the Tapermoon collection’s origin story - the spark if you will - as a serendipitous “Aha!” moment that came about when he was toying with a transit ticket.

From there, Dietz experimented with folding paper mindfully and with purpose, infusing his spatial awareness and design experience into the playful gesture. Since its launch in early 2019, Tapermoon has grown into a collection of six lighting designs, each of them modular and variable, just like folding a piece of paper. They are composed of a creased paper shade that resembles a bow tie or wrapped candy rendered with crisp edges. But Dietz didn’t stop at the shade itself - the folded aluminum base of the Tapermoon Bow for example, extends the theme of folding across the design.

Another bonus: folding metal is materially efficient, especially when patterns are designed intelligently to minimize offcuts and waste. With Tapermoon Sky, Cloud and Ray, the stacked composition of multiple modular shades also adds to the collection’s sustainable ethos. In the design process, Dietz went through hundreds of names, trying to capture the qualities of the light. Finally, he landed on Tapermoon: “Taper” for the edgy qualities of the form and “moon” for the units smoothness and celestial quality. Indeed, he notes that the moon has often been considered the companion of the earth. In the same way, the lamps in this collection are meant to be steadfast companions for our day-to-day existence.