Vertigo Bird is our first Slovenian manufacturer! They were founded by the owner of one of the country’s most successful lighting resellers, Arcadia Lightwear [sic], and the owner of the experienced lighting manufacturer, Sijaj Hrastnik. They have then commissioned lights from a most impressive international roster of designers — the perfect combination!
We were impressed with what we were seeing in the media — and even more impressed at Light+Building, where we could see the pieces close up for ourselves for the first time.
They have a motto: unpredictably elegant + unexpectedly functional. We agree with the “unexpectedly functional”: all the lights in these images do their jobs very well, but they can also be minimal, have added visual references, have personality, and be playful!
Antenna (above) by Neil Poulton is a minimal task light, that also brings to mind, well, an antenna.
Slim, by Bevk Perović:
is a linear pendant. Having the transformer in the light fitting itself obviates a box on the ceiling. The design is minimal in that it has no superfluous form or decoration (for all you Ornament und Verbrechen fans!): the lamp section, the transformer and the cables are all allowed to be what they are, no more and no less.
If you put several together, they look like a disembodied sword fight:
May the force be with you.
Here is A+A Cooren‘s Kokeshi table light:
The light section is usefully offset and slightly tilted, allowing it to be a task light. But it also has personality — it is a little person in a big hat (kokeshi are Japanese dolls).
And if Kokeshi is also a little person, Böttcher+Henssler‘s Mantis is also an insect:
The most ludic design in their current collection is the floor light, Smoke, also by Bevk Perović:
The lamp is in a puff of Tyvek. Then, instead of a conventional round metal base, there is added interest and meaning from having the smoke produced by a car, a house, a factory — or even a car park:
