When a recent grad from Camberwell College of the Arts, Taiwanese art student Chieh-Ting Huang, launched his first big project recently, it wasn’t only the architectural construction of ‘The P Objects’ lanterns that caught media attention. His Urban Camper website explains the design in such depth that taking in the artistic lanterns are like reading small novel, and his descriptions have us yearning for more from the young designer.

The P Objects of Urban Camper. Designed by Chieh-Ting Huang.

Colorful Artistic Lanterns: ‘The P Objects’ by Urban Camper by Chieh-Ting Huang.

“People can gather around the campfire and celebrate the beauty and the brightness that lighting brings us,” remarks Chieh-Ting Huang. Huang’s Urban Camper booth will display his fiery little capsules at the upcoming London Design Festival. ‘The P Objects’ description states how “it is hard to imagine a time when technological advancement moved at a slower pace and generation after generation read and gossiped, darned and contemplated by the soft, gently flickering light of a lantern.”

Huang goes on, saying the inspiration of his brilliant orange- and blue-tinted lanterns was “drawn from the symbolism associated with lanterns in the cultural of east and west, and how each has found a place in the heart of the other. On a broader level, they attempt to encapsulate the contrast and contradiction in building elaborate wood cages and delicate paper shades.” However, I think we can all appreciate his perception of the culture of the lantern, as he believes cultures have adapted the concept differently. For instance, he says: “In the orient, the lantern is generally conceived as a lightweight portable lighting devise consisting of wood or bamboo, and paper.” And later, he compares it to England four centuries ago, when gas for lighting was invented, and in turn, the lanterns “are of hard metal cages and cold glass… industrial or marine lamps.”

Fresh out of design school, Chieh-Ting Huang’s Urban Camper lanterns known as ‘The P Objects’ are a beautiful way to declare his spot in the lighting world with aim that teaches as well as inspires us to appreciate the way our lighting has evolved.

About the Designer: Chieh-Ting Huang is a designer from Taiwan who recently graduated from the Camberwell College of Arts in London. With a clear focus on lighting on his Urban Camper website, Huang’s BA in product design and MA in designer maker studies shines through the filters of the colorful lanterns, ‘The P Objects’, that will be shown at the London Design Festival this year.