Starck design show winner launches new product
Ilsa Parry, who was last night revealed as the winner of Philippe Starck’s BBC Two reality show Design for Life, is launching a new eco-light product.
In the last of six episodes, Parry impressed Starck with her walking aid, Flo, beating Mike Cloke and his Stable magnetic dining set for blind people into second place.
Since the show was recorded nearly a year ago, Parry has completed her six-month placement at Starck’s Paris studio and is now launching an eco-friendly light for children on to the market.
Kaspa the eco-light, which uses phosphor to create a green glow, is to be sold through online retailer Firebox.
Parry is producing Kaspa through her Liverpool-based product design consultancy Rethinkthings, which the former design lecturer set up after leaving Starck’s office in late spring.
Parry and five of her fellow Design for Life contestants displayed their work at 100% Design last month. Parry said at the time, ‘I am excited by the prospect of freely exhibiting what we personally believe to be innovative solutions, without the agenda of the TV producers and the Starck team to overshadow our imaginations’.
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Hmm – If the oh so Legendary Stark is as good as he thinks he is, one would have hoped for something a bit more innovative from Ilsa after 6 months under his tutorage… Mind you I wouldn’t have volunteered to do 6 months with the man. Judging by the TV show, he seemed a bit creepy and when Ilsa had to join his ‘family’ by putting her photo on the wall, it felt like she was signing up to some Evangelist design cult. I’m glad to hear she survived!
Yes Ilsa deserved ti win. I don’t think the French man has helped his image from doing this show. He came across as a buffoon trapped in a world that he created 15 years ago, and a desperate to find some young designers he could feed off, and propel him into to the present day. He’s also put me right off ever owning a motorbike.
Good luck to Ilsa – yes she deserved to win.
Think her Kaspa light however is very similar in look and feel to Ikea’s Spoka lamp for children…
What a huge disappointment! The show in itself was a let down – I think we should have seen commercially experienced designers on the programme instead of being subjected to what can only be described as school project crits. The product seems to be a mugshot of the Pac Man ghost and it would be more eco if the product wasn’t made at all.
yes… I agree i think something a little more innovative could have been achieved in the 6 months.
I think llsa really did deserved to win… but I think like many reality TV shows it could have done with a few less self absorbed individuals.
Wouldn’t Seymour Powell have made a better job of the whole series?! The only problem there is that it wouldn’t have been so able to dwell on the ‘celebrity’ of Starck and there wouldn’t have been the exotic Parisean locations. Still, I’d have watched.
Eeeerm Kaspa the eco-light!
After 6 months with le ‘Tribe’ (lol)
Looks like 6 steps back.
As a junior creative I enjoyed the show, although clearly it didn’t go so well. However it did occur to me that a British based studio with ‘commercially experienced designers’ would have made better competition and insight. But is TV the place for this kind of thing?
Ilsa deserved to win, but after ‘Flo’ there no sign of progression here.
People in the design industry really annoy me sometimes! Amazing how many people can’t wait to have a little dig at others. So much worse when the digs are plainly ignorant or uninformed.
I must have missed where the article above mentions that the ghost light was either produced while the girl was working in Starck’s studio OR where she claimed it was a progression from the walking aid (or was developed after it for that matter!). From the blurb on the website, It is an eco-friendly light that glows in the dark to allow kids to have a night light to let them fall asleep with which doesnt continue to use electricity. It does what it claims to do and from what I can see is a good product that works for the market it is aomed at – KIDS! And it is more eco friendly than leaving a light on
Maybe one of the detractors above should email Ilsa and tutor her with some of their expert advice. Dont forget to inform her that now she has designed a walking aid to help the elderly that she is now barred for the rest of her life from designing anything else that might possibly be aimed at anything more fun.
To slightly paraphrase one of the above posters, maybe the design world and the world in general would be better if some people never commented at all!
You need to have the intiative to make products which can be made and produced today, with technology available today, not tomorrow. Tomorrows ideas are purely theoretical. You impliement them into a product design and most likely they’ll fail. I totally disagree with the last comment. She worked for Phillipe Starck for 6 months and has gained the skills to develop interesting and imaginative products.
as a Landscape Architect with Parkinsons I think Parry’s winning design will be a much welcomed addition to my wardrobe – what a great concept…also am now selling her Spyke and Pippa glassware http://www.gardenbeet.com