The future shines so bright, I gotta wear shades.

LEDs are small, use little energy, last much longer than ordinary lightbulbs, and -since 1993- they can produce white light.

In the recent competition "bright LED" organized by desingboom.com and Gwangju biennale foundation, Korea over 3400 designers from 92 countries showed what the future of light could look like.

The results show a fascinating variety of commercial use that could really change the way we light up our homes and even ourselves.

You can put the LEDs practically everywhere - attach them to adhesive tape, sew them into cloth or carry them with you as an elegant object.

Because they are so small and light, you can create little fluffy cloudlike lamps that sway on fragile pylons as you walk past them.


Shimmering, touchsensitive plankton lights will adjust to your mood.

Minimal antenna-like sculptures which amplify and focus the light of a single LED by an elegant system of lenses and mirrors will substitute clunky lamps.
Cables are not required. Use rechargeable batteries or just charge the LED when you are not using it.





You can even display pictures in flashy 8-bit style or can read books under your blanket without a torch, because your blanket IS the torch.

Can "light-couture" be that far off?

Somebody came up with the idea to stick a LED into a bottlecap. This way the only light you´ll need in your bar would provided by the glowing bottles themselves.



A polish designer applied an old tradition of paper carving, called Wycinanki to LED lit plexiglass that is carved with intricate lines to a stunning effect that will throw any lava-lamp back to the stone age.

An expansive picture gallery of the contest can be seen here.