Kelsey Paul, host of the Studio Chats podcast interviewed Rainlight studio’s Creative Director, Yorgo Lykouria about his career insights, views on fostering mentorship and inspiration within the studio and trusting your creative instincts.
To listen to the full conversation visit the episode website.
Rainlight’s Creative Director, Yorgo Lykouria speaks with the London Society about “Why the Post-Pandemic world needs high-level thinking”.
‘Weather Report’ is a series of conversations between Rainlight’s Creative Director, Yorgo Lykouria and a variety of industry experts, futurists and creatives. During these discussions we’ll explore the perspectives of some of the most innovative and provocative leaders and thinkers touching on issues as varied as design for climate change, the future of cities, material innovation, inclusive design and how to approach design education.
We kick off on Earth Day with Dr Andrew Dent, Executive Vice President, Research at Material ConneXion, Chief Material Scientist at SANDOW. A leading expert on sustainable materials, he plays an important part in creating a new generation of more sustainable products.
AMBITUS by Rainlight for Zumtobel Group has been awarded a 2021 Red Dot Design Award “Best of the Best” for Lighting Design.
The Red Dot Design Award, first awarded in 1955, is one of the world’s most famous product design awards, with a jury of international design experts that recognises exceptional design achievements in a number of different fields.
This luminaire’s ring shape means it has light distribution of almost 360 degrees, supplying maximum efficiency and quality of light. The design development stage involved using pliable LEDs and a highly complex tooling process, while AMBITUS’s perforated pattern is achieved using sophisticated computational formulas, with the resulting abstract design reminiscent of being beneath a starlit sky. The result is a precise, elegant product that fuses design poetry with sharp functionality.
The Good Design Awards are recognized internationally as the oldest and most prestigious prize for product design excellence. The awards have been managed by the Chicago Athenaeum since their inception and use criteria such as concept, function and utility as they assess their winners. Rainlight’s Nagare design for Japanese manufacturer, Okamura has received a Good Design Award in the furniture category again this year, the second consecutive win for the collaborators as Rainlight’s Traverse table design for Okamura won in the same category last year. Nagare which means ‘flow’ in Japanese is a range of seating and tables that brings a gentle sense of movement and a sculptural statement to wherever work might take place. The collection will be accessioned into the Museum’s Permanent Design Collection in Chicago.
To learn more visit the awards’ website here.
As a gift to the planet, on behalf of the Rainlight community, we’re engaging with the World Land Trust to purchase acres of natural habitat in order to ensure they are protected and preserved. WLT works with its network of trusted conservation partners to create wildlife reserves around the world. Every acre that is saved becomes part of a larger reserve that is protected in perpetuity by a partner organization.
On November 5th the Italian Trade Agency hosted Design Day 2020, inviting Rainlight’s Yorgo Lykouria to participate in a discussion on the theme “Innovation, Style and Sustainability in Italian Design: Synergies and Opportunities in the U.S. Market”.
The SBID (Society of British & International Interior Designers) has awarded BoxLife by Rainlight for Scavolini a 2020 Product Design Award. The SBID awards recognize and celebrate innovation and quality within international design for both project and product contributions to the industry. Boxlife was awarded in the contract furniture category.
ThinkLab, a division of Sandow that focuses on research and consulting to the contract interiors world, invited Rainlight to join a panel of industry experts discussing the “Future of Materiality: Exploring new technologies, ideas and inspiration for the design ecosystem”. Led by ThinkLab’s President, Amanda Schneider, Rainlight’s Creative Director Yorgo Lykouria joined Suzanne Tick of Suzanne Tick, Dr. Andrew Dent of Material Connexion and Primo Orpilla of Studio O+A in outlining some of the key concepts at play while innovating for the post-COVID 19 world.
The 7th Annual HiP Awards was presented by Interior Design magazine’s Cindy Allen via a digital ceremony on June 12th. Rainlight’s design of Boost ottoman for Carnegie, was a winner in the Accessories category while Allsteel’s Rise was an honoree in the Workplace:modular seating category and Arcadia’s Allsorts & Smallsorts collection was an honoree in Workplace: Benches/stools category.
Metropolis Magazine editors have chosen two of Rainlight’s designs as winners of the 2020 #Metropolislikes awards. #Metropolislikes is a bi-annual product awards showcase. Carnegie’s Boost ottoman and Allsteel’s Rise were two of the 35 products selected. This year due to the effects of COVID-19, Neocon is being hosted virtually via Neoconnect, an online digital gallery of the conference’s exhibitors, panels and content.
Dezeen’s Virtual Design Festival (VDF) is an online platform hosted April 15th- June 30th, 2020. The festival was announced by the online publication in response to the cancellation of many major international design symposia and exhibitions due to COVID-19.
In a video interview, Yorgo Lykouria describes the inspiration behind and features of Scavolini’s BoxLife.
The NYCxDesign awards are held annually in May as New York welcomes designers and manufacturers from around the world during it’s annual city-wide festival. This year’s awards ceremony was live-streamed via Facebook Live for the very first time and hosted by Cindy Allen of Interior Design Magazine.
Rainlight was honored to be awarded the winner of the Storage product category for their design of BoxLife for Scavolini.
Boxlife is a modular system that contains every necessity from a kitchen module to a fold-able bed, office workspace, laundry unit and more. Each function is concealed into a compact series of ‘boxes’ that can be utilized as their need arises.
Designcurial features a letter of hope and adoration written by Yorgo Lykouria to Italy, during this challenging time.
Rainlight’s Yorgo Lykouria presents “Design as a Living Experience” at 100% Design during London Design Festival 2019. Yorgo explains his vast experience working with global brands to demonstrate how objects provoke thought and stimulate emotions and why they are so essential.
Townhall groups movable soft seating, tables, and accessories into multifunctional and agile micro-environments for individual and group work in shared, open spaces.
Business of Furniture magazine – January 30, 2019 issue
“Rainlight, the international product design studio based in London and Los Angeles, has garnered an impressive number of collaborations and awards in its first year of business. The company has collaborated with leading names in the world of furniture manufacturers, including Scavolini, Allsteel, Okamura, USAI, Carnegie Fabrics, Clestra, Mannington Com-mercial, Tecno. It also launched 12 new products at Salone del Mobile/Milan, Clerkenwell Design Week/London, Neocon/Chicago, AIA National Conference/New York, SDA Show-case/New York and Orgatec in Cologne.”
Part laboratory, part workshop, part studio, Rainlight combines design innovation with business acumen. Accolades Rainlight has earned over the past year include:
Led by Susan Grossinger and Yorgo Lykouria, Rainlight enters 2019 in a strong position by making products that enhance the way people live and work. Further launches are planned throughout 2019 at many of the major global trade shows.
“Product design is about the individual and their interaction with an object — it is the most personal of the design disciplines,” said Grossinger, who is based in Los Angeles. “Whether it’s your eyeglasses, the chair you sit in or your steering wheel, we all have a visceral interac-tion with design that affects our day-to-day life. The opportunity to make that experience extraordinary is in itself an exceptional experience.”
Rainlight strives to create objects that are timeless and pioneering. “A trend is already yes-terday,” Lykouria said. “We begin our work open to all possibilities.”
Its process starts with a philosophical question, refraining from the immediate urge to design.
“The things we create embody thought,” said Creative Director Lykouria, who is based in London and has more than two decades of experience in industrial design and architecture. “Our work today is a message to the future,” he said.