Some of the most common materials can be the least obvious choices for design. This lit up installation presents bright, attractive lighting against a background you wouldn’t expect. The pointed, striking design is fashioned from cardboard.

The piece is called Primary, and designer Flynn Talbot developed it as an exploration in colour and light. The material aspect really brings out the best of both worlds. Folded and scored plates of card generate a jagged landscape of white spikes.

These are illuminated from different angels, to create an intricate pattern of colours and shades. The designer used cardboard on purpose, stating that it’s a frequently overlooked material. Each polygon in the composition is a separate piece of card, which is folded and attached to a laser-cut MDF backing structure. This is then simply hung on the wall like a painting. It also has the advantage of being relatively lightweight for its size.

Cardboard also means the piece is recyclable, which is important to the designer as he always intended the piece to be a temporary structure.

The lights used are primary colours, red blue and green. The three colours mix on each of the three sides. Approaching the installation from the front, it first appears to be a flat triangle of colour on a screen. As you get closer, the colour variations on the various planes become more pronounced, revealing the physicality of Primary. These spiked cardboard polygons extend up to 2m out from the frame.

The designer also put together a 10 minute lighting programme, which cycles through all kinds of colours and hues to explore the huge range of visual texture available to the simplest of materials: white cardboard.

 

More to be seen in this video. Information via the designer. Photos © John Madden.