You’ve probably seen the Jolie showerhead in your social feed one time or another, a filter-based shower accessory purporting to improve skin and hair health by removing chlorine, heavy metals, and other contaminants commonly found coursing through residential pipes. With a smart looking modern design and simple DIY-ready installation, the showerhead presents an attractive bathroom upgrade for both homeowners and renters alike seeking a low-hanging fruit of functional and aesthetic upgrades.

One could deem Jolie adjacent to Sproos!, another bathroom upgrade hardware solution aimed at a younger set drawn toward clean-modern industrial design divergent from the typical shower hardware options available at the typical big box home improvement stores. The brand’s latest minimalist two-tone Forest Bathing Collection takes cues from hues seen walking under the canopy of trees – Cloud White & Birch, Cloud White & Pine, and Cloud White & Spruce (an additional Brushed Gold colorway fashioned after the warm glow seen shortly after sunrise and shortly before sunset was released concurrently to the arboreal palette trio). And within the context of today’s modern bathroom, the collection does well to appease any desire for a non-gilded and minimally embellished hardware shower solution.

Jolie’s design presents an almost wireless audio speaker aesthetic, the bulk of its form occupied by a replaceable filtration cartridge unit (good for 90 days; $36 for each replacement, or $33 with a subscription), and only subtly branded. Installation is well within the grasp of anyone with the most basic of DIY skills and can be switched out in mere minutes without any additional tools beyond the included small wrench and plumber’s tape to seal the deal.

In our time testing Jolie, the filter unsurprisingly delivered a noticeable improvement during lather and while drying, minimizing the harsh effects of the hard water typical to our area and reducing chlorine (Jolie claims their filter removes over 85% of chlorine for the lifespan of their filter using calcium sulfite, a more modest figure compared to other brands claiming 99% efficacy).

Unsurprisingly, our skin and hair did feel better using a filtered showerhead in comparison to an unfiltered model, with hair feeling softer and skin left feeling cleaner sans soap residue. Note this is also true of other filtering showerheads. Additionally, hard water staining is less evident, and the Jolie is designed to remove chlorine without diminishing water pressure, an issue we’ve experienced with previous shower add-ons.

At $165 (or $148 with subscription), the Jolie is a bit of a splurge, but delivers the sort of attainable design + lifestyle upgrade that elevates the morning ritual with noticeable effects across the largest human organ, our skin.

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Gregory Han is the Managing Editor of Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.

The Rippled Stool is a limited edition series of stools designed by London-based Wilkinson & Rivera launched exclusively through The Future Perfect. Wilkinson & Rivera is a collaborative venture by Grant Wilkinson and Teresa Rivera who turn towards the intricacies of fine art, the practicality of furniture craftsmanship, and the nuanced elegance of interior design.

The Rippled Stools are a limited edition collection that have been meticulously handcrafted from European oak. The creators employed sustainable methods and an inventive approach to bring this unique collection to life, with each stool leg carved from a singular piece of wood. The pieces underwent a strategic quartering and reconfiguration process to morph into a compelling sculpture-like silhouette.

This innovative construction technique not only upheld the inherent strength of the wood but also minimized waste, underlining the studio’s commitment to sustainable design. Adding an element of exclusivity, this collection comprises only ten stools, each marked by distinct grain patterns and color tones.

To learn more about the limited edition Rippled Stool collection, visit thefutureperfect.com.

Leo Lei translates his passion for minimalism into his daily-updated blog Leibal. In addition, you can find uniquely designed minimalist objects and furniture at the Leibal Store.

Goil Amornvivat hadn’t worked as an interior designer until he landed on Bravo’s Top Design in 2007 – and the first room he approached as an interior designer on the show was his first room he approached as an interior designer, anywhere. (He wasn’t without qualifications, of course: He was a Yale-trained architect – and he’s still a practicing interior designer today.) He says that experience, all those years ago, exemplifies the most valuable lesson he took from his appearance on the show: “My first lesson [from the show] is to try and try to surprise yourself,” he says. “You never know what kind of skills you have if you haven’t tried.” The second lesson focused on the value of representation: “There’s a difference between diversity and representation,” Amornvivat says. “This is really dear to my heart because after the show, I received a lot of emails from fans [who said that] because they’d seen an Asian designer on TV, they were more likely to follow their passion. That was really meaningful for me.”

These days, Amornvivat, who runs AMMOR Architecture with partner, Thomas Morbitzer, is working across all of these disciplines: interior design and architecture projects in Connecticut, San Diego, Palm Springs, and Long Island, as well as spearheading equal, inclusion, and diversity initiatives at Carnegie Mellon’s College of Fine Arts, his alma mater. His favorite projects, he says, are those that allow him to work both as an architect and an interior designer.

In this week’s Milkshake, we asked Amornivivat about what it’s like sharing a home with a fellow architect: “For us, it’s been 23 years [together], and we could be fighting that whole time – I think that’s what you’re trying to ask,” he says with a laugh. “But we don’t fight about it because we’re both professionals. We know how to listen and we know how to have a dialogue about everything that we do – especially within the high stakes of creating a livable home.”

The Abbey Duplex Photo: Garrett Rowland

We also asked him, in terms of creating a livable home, which trends in interior design are here to stay. The question, he said, is flawed in its premise: He doesn’t operate in trends. For him, interior design is instead about solving problems – for example, how to bring light into typically sun-starved New York City apartments. And it remains a holistic experience: “My big thing about interior design is the whole picture,” he says. “So the mentality of à la carte is really difficult for me to kind of understand and fix. When you’re looking at interior design, I think you should step back and take a look at how things relate to each other in a larger picture.” For more, tune in!

Williamsburg Apartment Photo: Garrett Rowland

UWS Penthouse Duplex Photo: Garrett Rowland

SOHO Loft Photo: Matt Dutile

Diana Ostrom, who has written for Wallpaper, Interior Design, ID, The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets, is also the author of Faraway Places, a newsletter about travel.

Milkshake, DMTV (Design Milk TV)’s first regular series, shakes up the traditional interview format by asking designers, creatives, educators and industry professionals to select interview questions at random from their favorite bowl or vessel. During their candid discussions, you’ll not only gain a peek into their personal homeware collections, but also valuable insights into their work, life and passions.

Ambiance and utility are one and the same in Pablo Designs’ Carousel. The two piece series – table lamp and floor lamp – combine a wireless mobile charging tray with warm, glare-free illumination. The tray’s surface features two wireless charging zones, plus a USB-C charging port, to accommodate a range of devices. Meanwhile, the table’s base is a transparent fluted acrylic cylinder diffuser that emits indirect lighting via a hidden flat panel LED control that includes full dimming capabilities.

Carousel Table is ideal for bedside and desktop use, while Carousel Floor continues to bring light to furniture on a larger scale – and is the winner of the 2023 AZ Awards. The base diffuser on both models is offered in clear and bronze tint options that can be paired with a spun steel tray in a matte White, Terracotta, or Black finish. The trays are available in 12-inch (30.5cm) and 16-inch (40.6cm) diameters.

Pablo Designs – helmed by Pablo Pardo – has been at it since 1993, with Carousel continuing to display the brand’s commitment to design-driven solutions that can last a lifetime. Through the use of technology, materials, and geometry, the studio’s human-centered design philosophy plays out to create LED lighting systems that are environmentally responsible in terms of energy consumption. The common thread that links all of Pablo Designs’ projects is the value of permanence and sustainability in today’s prevalent throwaway society.

To learn more about Carousel, visit pablodesigns.com.

Kelly Beall is Director of Branded Content at Design Milk. The Pittsburgh-based writer and designer has had a deep love of art and design for as long as she can remember, from Fashion Plates to MoMA and far beyond. When not searching out the visual arts, she’s likely sharing her favorite finds with others. Kelly can also be found tracking down new music, teaching herself to play the ukulele, or on the couch with her three pets – Bebe, Rainey, and Remy. Find her @designcrush on social.

Even if you only harbor a passing interest in bicycles recreationally, there’s a good chance the name Specialized rings a bell. The brand’s range of mountain bikes (and other cycles) are coveted for their combination of cutting edge technologies and performance. Specialized is equally popular with seasoned riders who grew up riding hardtails as they are with the new generation accustomed to technologies that allow riders today to carve trails faster, farther, and more comfortably than ever before.

Specialized recently approached us to demo one of their more capable electric mountain bike models. But during this test period we became immediately enamored by the bike’s most intricate and ergonomic component: its saddle.

The brand’s catalog of seat accessories varies across size, application, and materials, with many identifiable to the everyday rider as something like a typical bike seat. But four of their highest grade models – Power Pro with Mirror, S-Works Power with Mirror, S-Works Romin EVO with Mirror, and Power Expert with Mirror – exhibit a curiously complex perforated pattern that stands out.

The four Mirror technology seats are expressed in ornate detail, especially the most intricate model. But the saddle designs are not intended to be merely an aesthetic nor even a weight-saving solution as one might guess, but the outcome of Specialized’s design team chasing improved ergonomics.

The physical stresses related to riding any bicycle are cumulative, small incremental pressures that in sum take their toll upon the body one bump, rock, and revolution at a time. Using high resolution pressure map, Specialized’s design team was able to identify the specific points where saddles produce the greatest stress upon the body and then optimize their novel design in relation to our body’s geometry – seating you might describe as designed from the bottom up.

The Mirror-equipped saddles are identifiable by their intricate formed network of 22,200 struts and 10,700 nodes stretched across lightweight carbon rails. Interlinked into a 3D-printed matrix made from EPU, a rubber-like polyurethane elastomer capable of impressive feats of elasticity, the material’s characteristics impart the saddles the ability to “rebound” to effectively reduce stress upon a rider’s body while riding across uneven surfaces while seated, an effect similar to adidas’s efforts with 3D-printing to lessen stressors attributed to the constant pounding with every foot strike.

But in this instance, the lattice woven pad is designed to alleviate the constant barrage of pressure applied to a region of the body not evolved for such excessive force. In our limited span riding upon a Mirror equipped seat, we noted a comparable difference to the traditionally foam padded seat we’re accustomed to riding upon. The saddle’s feel is firm, but not hard, when pedaling normally across smooth surfaces. But when we hit more hairy sections of our local mountainside trails, the seat took on a more noticeably forgiving and responsive personality that left the backside (mostly) unscathed despite the uneven percussive force.

Specialized claims their Mirror equipped Saddle’s channeled design reduces pressure by 26% compared to traditional foam saddle, an improvement in ride comfort compounded over hours of riding trails or roads. Additionally, to ensure the best fit, the range is available in varying widths, with the Power Expert with Mirror offering the widest options. Ideally, riders are paired with the right saddle size using a Retül Digital Sit bone Device, but Specialized hosts an easy, and somewhat amusing, DIY option to identify where your sit bones correlate to the widths of their saddles (aka, a “butt print,” as remarked by my spouse) using nothing more than a few pieces of cardboard, a ruler, and a marker or pen.

Specialized loaned us one of their most capable Levo electric mountain bikes equipped with a Mirror saddle to invite us to hit our local trails and feel the Mirror technology’s effects firsthand. While our arms felt a bit like wet noodles after climbing and riding back down across a local rock-laden trail a few outings, the saddle delivered a comfortable and supportive ride the entire way down.

Specialized Mirror saddles are today’s cutting edge, and priced accordingly. But in time it’s inevitable the 3D-printed, ergonomics-optimized approach will trickle down to become rule rather than the exceptional exception for riders everywhere.

Gregory Han is the Managing Editor of Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.

Modular furniture is as useful outside as it is indoors – maybe even more so. ORIXE is a new industrialized range of commercial modular outdoor furniture designed by Spanish brands Savia by Finsa and Stone Designs. The collection’s name is derived from the Galician word for “origin” and pays homage to the brands’ focus on materials that come from the earth. The collection, made using concrete mixed with recycled aggregate, wood, and metal, is inspired by the stumps of trees. Particularly the ones felled in forests, as it’s the only proof of their existence.

ORIXE includes tables of various shapes and heights, benches, seats, umbrellas, planters, bins, and screens. All components can be used together in a nearly unlimited range of combinations and formations. The collection’s flexible design is ideal for outdoor spaces: terraces, co-working spaces, hotels, and more. Assembling the ORIXE system is fast and easy, giving you the ability to rearrange elements as many times and as often as you’d like.

To learn more about the ORIXE collection, visit finsa.com.

Kelly Beall is Director of Branded Content at Design Milk. The Pittsburgh-based writer and designer has had a deep love of art and design for as long as she can remember, from Fashion Plates to MoMA and far beyond. When not searching out the visual arts, she’s likely sharing her favorite finds with others. Kelly can also be found tracking down new music, teaching herself to play the ukulele, or on the couch with her three pets – Bebe, Rainey, and Remy. Find her @designcrush on social.

If you find yourself in Bydgoszcz, Poland, and have a craving for delectable pastries served in a trendy and bustling atmosphere, then head straight to Pastry Club Woda. Nestled in the historic Rother’s Mill complex on Mill Island, this place is either a pastry shop inside a club or a club inside a pastry shop – either way it’s designed by Znamy sie for foodies and partygoers alike.

Mill Island, surrounded by water, is a vibrant hub for cultural events organized by the city of Bydgoszcz. The island’s history is rooted in inland water transport of grain and flour production, and Pastry Club Woda cleverly incorporates these aspects into its design. As soon as you arrive, you’re greeted by a bold cobalt colored floor and tiled bar, all symbolizing the flow of water.

The historic Rother’s Mill complex once housed a grain and flour granary storehouse and mill. The pastry club beautifully intertwines modern machinery and design elements to pay homage to its rich history. The open kitchen allows customers to witness the baking, resembling the flour production process that once took place on the grounds.

Pastry Club Woda is a chameleon, shifting its identity as the day progresses from cobalt to orange. By day, it’s a bright, technical space, displaying an array of mouthwatering pastries against the cool cobalt backdrop. As the sun sets and night falls, the club transforms into a hotspot. Warm orange lights take over, creating an inviting ambiance reminiscent of a setting sun.

One of the highlights of the Pastry Club Woda experience is its focus on the internal production process. The space is thoughtfully divided between the customer area and the technological section, ensuring visitors can witness the magic of baking and pastry creation up close and personal.

Whether you’re a food enthusiast or looking for a fun night out, Pastry Club Woda is set up to entice all. With its blend of water-themed design, flour production references, and the seamless transition from pastry shop to a nightclub, this place aims to captivate your senses.

Photography by ONI Studio.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.

Danish furniture brand TAKT has released its first sofa – Spoke – a collaboration with Anderssen & Voll. It’s designed specifically with repair in mind to be a long-life, low-waste, and entirely recyclable entry to the notoriously unsustainable furniture category. Design Milk caught up with Anderssen & Voll co-founder Torbjørn Anderssen to find out more.

Tell me about your childhood, education, and background and how you first became interested in repair.        

We both come from creative homes. I’m the son of a musician and teacher, and Espen is the son of a ceramicist and architect. In our childhoods, we were always interested in making things, which led us to study design.

When I was younger, I would make patchwork clothes out of found materials, because I couldn’t find what I wanted in the shops. It wasn’t repair exactly, but it was being resourceful and bringing my ideas into the world. Also, my dad made the sofa that we lived with for decades, so that probably influenced me in some way.

Later, at Norway Says, our first Milan exhibition 23 years ago, we exhibited furniture made with our own hands. It traveled to the Design Museum in London. That’s where it all began for us.

What appeals to you about repairing existing objects versus creating something new?

The rotation time of objects in the home is so fast nowadays. In the past interiors were not led by trends as they are now. We even have a “color of the year,” which is a bit ridiculous. We believe in the longevity of color – when you use color in a design it needs to be carefully considered to not go out of fashion in a few years’ time.

When something does break or needs repairing, it feels good to solve the problem yourself. It makes you feel like you have agency in your life. It’s something we teach our children to do – to take care of things. When you repair something you develop a personal connection with the artifact. When you understand the connection of each part to the whole, you see it in a different light.

With our in-house brand, Nedre Foss, Espen and I talk about “The Century Product.” Our goal is that our objects should last at least a hundred years.

There are many words for repair with slight nuances in their meaning – mending, fixing, hacking, restoring, repurposing… which do you prefer in relation to your work and why?

Repair to us means a design which is clearly fragmented into parts made from good, clean, and solid materials that could either be reinforced or easily exchanged. It is a very different design approach to the one we started out with 25 years ago where the unified, “covered-up” look was the aesthetic ideal.

We like repairing, fixing, and mending as they imply that the user is striving to revive the original design intent of the object. I think of hacking as something very different. Hacking alters objects, which is a more creative act that moves beyond the original design, so we prefer the term “repair.”

How would you describe this project?

Espen and I are different, so when we design we bring independent viewpoints and find a compromise that is stronger. This often means our designs have a duality to them, which we celebrate.

Spoke certainly has a Danish flavor to it, which is appropriate for TAKT, but also something about the no-nonsense woodwork that makes us think about Japan. So it’s in between those two design cultures, creating something familiar but new.

What is the inspiration behind it – where did the idea come from?

The scope of Spoke Sofa was to design a flat-pack modular sofa that once assembled would look like a solid whole – a sofa to fit the TAKT philosophy of transparency.

The design and aesthetics really derive from the functionality and manufacturing parameters. TAKT sells directly to customers and ships the furniture in flat boxes to their door, so the design comprises a number of individual components that can be made with a high level of accuracy. This is important as most furniture is glued together at the factory, when the manufacturer can approve its final form; Spoke is built by the customer at home, and could be repaired in a decade’s time, so it requires another level of detail to ensure all the components are interchangeable. This was a big factor in its design.

We’re very happy with how it’s come out. It proves that this level of quality within this model is possible.

Which repair techniques are you using and why?

Spoke was designed for disassembly which means a composition of separated mono materials: a wooden structure and loose foam cushions. So each component can be replaced, repairing the whole via components. If the solid wood gets nicked or scratched it can be repaired with TAKT’s wood oils, so you don’t need to repair everything if you’re happy to display the scrapes and scratches from everyday life at home.

How did you learn the techniques you use in your work?

Espen’s mother was a ceramicist and father an architect, so he picked up handicrafts and ideas about design at home, but our skills and techniques really developed at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design and the Oslo National Academy of Art, where we studied.

Subsequently, we really invested time in going to design fairs when we graduated. We would go to Milan to see what other designers presented and note how people reacted to the work. We had our eyes open. That’s how we developed our own voice.

Around that time Espen was partly living in California as his wife was doing a PhD at the University of Santa Cruz. So we had that West Coast influence coming into our work, too.

We developed a global outlook, from our home in Norway.

How do your repairs change the function or story of the object?

We see repair as restoring the original function of our design rather than a way to change it, but the process of repairing develops an emotional connection with the furniture and embeds memories into the object.

At home, I have a rug in our living room that is really worn out from family life with two young kids. We love the rug but it hasn’t lasted as well as we hoped. So that could be the end of the story; we could throw it out. But I’ve started to patch it with some Norwegian wool yarn that I bought a couple of weeks ago. I was inspired by the Japanese technique of Sashiko mending. It’s been on my list to fix it for a long time and I’m enjoying creating new beauty and stories in this way. Now I have a hand in it, I’m sure I will keep it for a very long time.

How visible or invisible is the repair and why is that important?

We think you should always do your best to make the repair as beautiful as possible. A messy repair is to us an uninteresting fashion statement.

In Japanese culture, repairing is always adding value and beauty. Objects should not degrade as they are repaired, they should be improved and become more desirable. We need this cultural shift in Western cultures.

How have people reacted to this project or body of work?

We are pleased with the positive reaction to both the form and the function of Spoke Sofa. It’s important that furniture that is demountable and modular is still beautiful and desirable. We are happy to have achieved both with TAKT.

A lot of people say they love the spokes in the backrest. I think they enjoy seeing the structure and, from a distance, understanding how it works and how they could put it together or repair it. It’s more open.

How do you feel opinions towards mending and repair are changing?

It was a big topic at 3daysofdesign this year, so it seems like they are being accepted. But it’s easy to assume that because people around us are talking about it that everyone is – the global market is huge and it will take time for everyone to understand and adopt it.

It’s funny because our parents and grandparents had all of the sustainability and circularity values that we are trying to introduce now, but they didn’t have the words for them because they were simply common sense. To some extent, we are trying to return to how they lived, but in the modern day. It should be quite simple really.

In the professional market, it’s demanded much more. The wear rate is much higher than in the home, so contract furniture does need to be repairable and brands do need to stock spare parts, but in the home, people throw a lot more away.

We feel that if something allows itself to be repaired, this is a sign of quality.

What do you think the future holds for repair?

More designs with the principles embedded within Spoke, which was designed for disassembly with a composition of separated mono materials: a wooden structure and loose cushions.

Design for repair should evolve new aesthetics. The principles allow us to return to familiar aesthetics, but I believe in the future we will retain the values but find new material and structural combinations that will look different.

For all of this to become more ingrained in design culture it needs legislation, which would force manufacturers to operate in more responsible ways.

Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author and, podcaster championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. She is also the founder and director of Making Design Circular, a program and membership community for designer-makers who want to join the circular economy. With 20 years’ experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine and Monocle24 – as well as being Editor at Large for Design Milk. She is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and a podcast, Circular with Katie Treggiden.

Audio specialists Rinaro Isodynamics is renown within certain audiophile circles for driving some of the most lauded and desirable audiophile tier headphones, most notably the luxuriously appointed and top performing Meze Empyerean. Those particular headphone’s sizable price tag should make it evident Rinaro helps engineer gear categorized toward a discerning listener drawn to gear far from the realm of playthings. The same could not be said about Rinaro’s surprising collaboration with collectible toy brand, Medicom Toys, of its intentionally playful design: the [email protected] Audio 400% wireless Bluetooth speaker.

Founded in 1996, Medicom Toys appeared on the cultural radar around the aughts after launching a 7 cm tall bear-shaped block type figure. [email protected] was conceived as the “digital image of the teddy bear” (thus the “@”) and to celebrate the 100th anniversary year of its toy great grandfather, the teddy bear. [email protected] would go on to define an entire scene of art toy collectibles, coveted by rabid collectors drawn to Medicom’s numerous limited run collaborations and vast iterative interpretations of the blank bear canvas.

Rinaro Isodynamics on the other hand has earned their reputation focused upon the development of something a bit more obscure: planar magnetic technology. This category of audio driver differentiates itself from drivers typically found within speakers, and more prominently premium headphones, using an electromagnetic signal deliver via a wire running across a thin flat diaphragm paired with a suspended magnet. The wires manipulate the diaphragm and magnet by turning it on and off the signal, and in turn create a sound some discerning ears describe as distortion-free.

We reached out to Rinaro Isodynamics founder Pavlo Shymanovych to inquire whether similar audiophile technology powers this latest [email protected] offering, and he clarified while this piece does not utilize planar magnetic tech, the dynamic drivers Rinaro designed for Medicom are bespoke to this particular design.

For the full immersive experience, a pair of [email protected] AUDIO 400% speakers can be paired into stereo mode.

“They were designed with a specific weight, a flexible cone, special magnetic system, and specific resonant frequency optimized for this acoustic volume,” explained Shymanovych via text messaging. “Traditionally speakers are designed in opposite fashion, with an acoustic volume built around existing drivers. But since we have to follow the original B[email protected] 400% shape, we had to develop everything custom.”

The bespoke design includes a special driver setup Rinaro calls QUAD’360, an omnidirectional solution engineered to produce a uniform 360° audio field around the speaker. “This is a super complex task, and we are now in process of patent application for this invention, notes Shymanovych.”We started [development] in 2019 and it took us almost 4 years – more than 20,000 engineering hours – to finalize it, a project far more complex than we expected when we began.” One [email protected] AUDIO 400% should sound very good, two in stereo mode, even better.

All this effort could be credited to the fact Shymanowych identifies as an enthusiastic [email protected] collector himself. “I was excited to take [email protected] into the world of audio,” says Shymanowych. “The development of the speaker has been an extremely interesting, yet highly complex task. But we’ve created a product that our entire team is proud of.”

You can join the waitlist for the limited [email protected] AUDIO 400% Portable Bluetooth Speaker here.

Gregory Han is the Managing Editor of Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.

What does Milan Iluminación’s new Symphony Collection look like to you – a sunhat, a flying saucer, or something else entirely? The lighting group’s name makes sense once you learn that the series is meant to resemble a small orchestra of percussion and diffused light. Designed by Jordi Pla, the rotating glass lampshade directs the light to shrink in size or grow larger to fill a space. The lampshades employ a magnetized system, creating a magnetic field that enables the screen to rotate around it via ball joint.

Made of steel, the Symphony Collection is both extruded and stamped during the manufacturing process, while shades are made using spinning aluminum. The light-diffusing shade is made of a glossy opal blown glass.

The Symphony Collection is available in four styles: upright, wall light, high desktop, and low desktop. Choose from three colors and three finishes: mink lacquer, charcoal gray, and metallic copper to suit the space.

To learn more about the Symphony Collection of lighting, visit milan-iluminacion.com.

Kelly Beall is Director of Branded Content at Design Milk. The Pittsburgh-based writer and designer has had a deep love of art and design for as long as she can remember, from Fashion Plates to MoMA and far beyond. When not searching out the visual arts, she’s likely sharing her favorite finds with others. Kelly can also be found tracking down new music, teaching herself to play the ukulele, or on the couch with her three pets – Bebe, Rainey, and Remy. Find her @designcrush on social.