Decorative Lighting: Highlights of Imm Cologne 2018

The Imm Cologne is over and we had some nice, informative and exhausting days there. One focus of the Cologne fair was “light” and so we were eager to see what it presented in this regard and what the highlights of Imm Cologne 2018 were. At the special exhibition “Featured Editions”, the topic “light” was in the foreground.

In so-called “Light Labs” wrapped in gauze fabric, various designs were exhibited in Halls 3.2 and 2.2. This area served as an exhibitor to demonstrate an attitude, a technical principle, an approach or a creative idea in the form of an installation. A jury subsequently selected and awarded the three best projects.

Among the highlights of Imm Cologne 2018 was the installation “Das Haus”, which was inspired by light. Lucie Koldova showed how important lighting is and how it affects the mood.

At the entrance, the house was bright and white at first, but as soon as you went through the “door”, you found yourself in a cozy living room with a sofa and a large warm light installation – the new Puro Sparkle lamp by Lucie Koldova. Some of her beautiful Macaron table lamps, which she also designed for Brokis, were placed around the living room area called the “Living Zone”, which ensured a pleasant secondary lighting.

The bathroom, named “Relax Zone” consisted only of a bathtub and light, that invited you to relax with the fascinating “Ivy” lighting design. The bedroom also featured many Ivy lights coming down from the ceiling. This time slightly colored over the large bed but also with subtle lighting to prepare for a peaceful sleep.

We liked the approach very well and the implementation also fit in with the “light” theme. The special focus on the finely tuned lighting and its application is one of the highlights of Imm Cologne 2018.

We came across a few big and small companies at the Cologne fair, which impressed us with their lighting designs. Among the well-known exhibitors in hall 2 were Louis Poulsen, Brokis and Ebb & Flow – which we already covered last year – including Hollands Licht from the Netherlands and Verpan from Denmark.

Hollands Licht showed some novelties under the motto “Today’s Dutch Design”.

The label was founded in 1968 and has since tried not only to consider lights as objects, but also to consider the functionality of the lamp in a room. We liked Limpid Light by Esther Jongsma and Sam van Gurp best. Thanks to a clever pulley system, the LED module in the glass shade can be variably adjusted.

This allows a variety of lighting effects. Behind a sandblasted surface of the glass the light appears soft and diffuse. Limpid Lights is also a beautiful combination of traditional craftsmanship and innovation. The hand-blown glass is produced in the Czech Republic and the suspension system including the LED module is developed and manufactured in the Netherlands.

The Danish label Verpan, also a furniture and lighting manufacturer, showed their recreation of lighting designs by the popular designer Verner Panton (1926-1998).

These include the orange “Moon” ball lights, which he designed for Louis Poulsen in 1960, the “Fun” pendant light and the “VP Globe” lights in various designs. For lovers of the 50s-70s style, chic and partly modern interpreted lights of the original designs can be found with this label.

The lamps by Verpan are mostly found in hotels, restaurants and bars. The VP Globe adapts very well in hotels due to its luxury design, as we noticed on some project pictures of the design company. Since 2010, a number of furniture designs have also been added to the portfolio, some of which we admired on the exhibition stand.

A company that impressed us in Hall 11.3 was the Italian label Paolo Castelli, which also showed luxury furniture.

With great attention to detail, the label creates furniture and lighting for an international customer base with a sophisticated taste. Art deco and furnishings from the 60s were omnipresent at the fair and the high-quality processed products by Paolo Castelli perfectly fit in. The chandelier “Que Lumen” with a diameter of 141 cm was newly introduced and features a truly stunning design quality just like older lamps such as “Anodine” or “Galaxy”. It was above all the arrangement of the lighting designs that staged a luxury ambience. One of our highlights of Imm Cologne 2018 par excellence.

In Hall 3.1 E042 we discovered a young German design label called “Halbeins”.

With Halbeins, designer Simone Witting became self-employed in 2007 and showed her printed lampshades and wall lights. Halbeins has been represented in the Juneic workshop shop in Cologne together with the design label byform since 2012. Here the current trends get identified, new products developed and the lamps manufactured.

We liked their ornamental lights and shadow wall lights very much. These throw filigree shadows on the wall or the table. This component and the very good workmanship of the material impressed us. Due to the simple design of the wall lights, the motifs can also be exchanged according to mood. Also, the material bandwidth is almost inexhaustible: brass, copper, steel, lacquered and printed MDF, glass or plexiglass can be used as material for the lights.

In terms of light bulbs, we were able to discover new products at Imm Cologne.

Company Segula from Horb in Germany showed their latest LED bulbs with E14 or E27 socket. Fascinating was the filigree LED-SEGULA soft filament “PLUS”. With this new “Curved Line” finally an LED light bulb is available, which is in no way inferior in aesthetics and function of conventional tungsten or carbon filament lamps.

The lighting effect is enormous: fine light wires loop in the glass body like once the filament of a light bulb. To improve the life of the LEDs, the LED chips are operated at only a fraction of the maximum possible power. So a lifetime of 20,000 hours can be realized. Segula additionally cools the product with a heat sink embedded in the filament. Also, all LED bulbs by Segula have a color rendering index of > 90 Ra and are dimmable with the suiting dimmers.

In the special exhibition “Designers Market”, an area sponsored by Blickfang we discovered innovative and sustainable lighting products such as the lamps by Lichtliebe and Sybille Homann.

Glass designer Sybille Homann from Hamburg presented her glass designs made of used glass such as bottles or window glass. In addition to candlesticks, bowls and wardrobes she presented a very beautiful light object called “Lulu”, with which pieces of bottles are put behind a sandblasted lamp body. As a wall or ceiling lamp, this is a real eye-catcher. Even her pendant lamp “Bamboo”, a simple tube of colored bottle glass is a real looker and the parts are almost perfectly connected. She makes the models in small series or on request and markets them online and in her studio in Hamburg.

We also found the young label “Lichtliebe” from Frankfurt with a stand there. In 2013, the two company founders started their own business after completing their studies. The light designs with the names Fafoo, Zyla, Rekoo, and Rela are all crafted by hand and impress with a clear design language.

One of the core principles of Lichtliebe is that the products are made in Germany. The bases and bodies of the lights are manufactured in a contemplative joinery in the Erzgebirge, the textile cables are supplied by a German cable factory and the wood comes from sustainable forestry. All materials that are processed are 100% recyclable.

We found that Imm Cologne 2018 had a successful mix of well-known popular and small emerging labels with potential in its portfolio.

These are our highlights of Imm Cologne 2018. We’re looking forward to even more light at Light+Building 2018 from 18. – 23.03. in Frankfurt. The next fair, where we will report in detail and research new lighting trends. In the meantime, as a subscriber to our free newsletter, you have access to our e-book on Highlights of Light+Building 2016. If you are new, follow this link to get the free book.