Ever since Jony Ive left Apple, there has been a lull, with a suggestion that something big is being cooked behind closed doors. OpenAI and Ive’s venture, io, have been working in close quarters on a new family of products that are speculated to be screen-free, pocket-sized devices. In between all this speculation was the Limited Edition Sondek LP12 turntable remake with a refined design and well-tuned audio. His design firm LoveFrom gets the AI hardware influence from OpenAI, as they’ve announced a sailing lantern, created in partnership with Japanese manufacturing company Balmuda, that specializes in creating everyday tools.
The upmarket lantern was born from Ive’s frustration with the existing options available for his yacht. The product started off as normal sketches that the former Apple CEO walked with in Gen Terao, CEO Balmuda’s office. The idea quickly resonated with Terao, and the two went into a snowball of discussing the prototypes. The basic sense was to make something inspired by the old Fresnel lamps used by sailors for navigation. Ive, who himself fancies sailing, decided to incorporate elements of the GP14 boats from his childhood, hence came into fruition the LoveFrom x Balmuda Sailing Lantern that costs $4,800.
Ive said, “It has been a considerable honour and enormously enjoyable creating our lantern with Gen and his wonderful team at BALMUDA. As a young boy, I adored sailing and spending my time on the water. Our lantern was created and built for maritime conditions. While the materials, form, and product architecture are new, there is a reassuring familiarity to the nautical lanterns and Fresnel lamps of the past whose designs evolved to address the same unforgiving functional requirements.”
Gen complements this sentiment by adding that, “This collaboration is built on mutual respect and a shared obsession with the small, unseen details that shape our experience of an object. The Sailing Lantern is a light for life – durable, soulful, and quietly transformative.” He very passionately explains how Jony introduced him to the idea of an ancient flame having a modern form. Creating a lantern that carries the essence of enduring adventures and romantic nights is rare.
The initial challenge in the creation of the design was developing a luminary quality that has warmth and emotional resonance, seen in conventional lanterns. Emulating the light from the frame and filament are the key factors, and that’s what was made possible with the two LEDs, rechargeable battery, and digital control system. The opulent lantern manages to achieve the emotional element with a single dial control for both brightness and color temperature. The focus on the design of the lantern was on leaving a minimal carbon footprint; thus, designing it to be easy to maintain, repair, and ultimately recyclable.
This resulted in choosing materials for both integrity and longevity. The precision-ground, polished glass, precision-machined stainless steel having a mirror polish, and texture-blasted electroplated finish all contribute to the exclusivity of the Sailing Lantern. One can either use it in freestanding or suspended mode with a lanyard. No wonder the Sailing lantern is only going to be made in a limited run of 1,000 units.
The post Jony Ive teams up with Balmuda to create limited edition sailing lantern first appeared on Yanko Design.
