Altiora started with a simple brief: design a functional desk lamp for my own workspace.

It became my first real lesson in Industrial Product Design. I wanted to make a lamp that worked well, but also had a quiet presence on the desk. Not a loud object. Not just a wooden sculpture with an LED hidden inside. A lamp with flow, warmth, and a clear reason to exist.

The design grew through research into classic lamps, lighting quality, color temperature, and how people actually use light while working. I explored different directions before choosing a simple setup: LED light, USB-C power, touch control, passive cooling, wood, and metal.

The biggest part of the project was making. No CAD. No 3D printing. No laser cutting. Just sketches, test models, foam, wood, sanding, drilling, soldering, and a lot of checking whether the shape still made sense from every angle.

I first built rough models to understand the proportions and gesture of the lamp. Then I shaped a foam model to test the flow. The final version was carved from wood by hand, stained, clear coated, and fitted with the electronics.

The final model is not perfectly aligned, but I’m still proud of it. It was my first IPD project, made almost completely by hand, and it taught me how much precision, patience, and material understanding matter when an idea becomes a real object.