How Monos Came to Be
As we prepare for the upcoming Monos pre-sale launch, we wanted to share the story behind how our new product came to be.
You may know our story - if not, you can watch a video here.
After we finished working on the Fluora Mini, we were looking for new concepts for our next product.
Our co-worker and talented LED Artist, Cameron and his friend Ryan were simultaneously exploring product ideas with Ryan’s new 3d printer.
Our co-worker and talented LED Artist, Cameron and his friend Ryan were simultaneously exploring product ideas with Ryan’s new 3d printer.
They wanted to make a really simple consumer friendly lamp that leveraged the immersive LED technology Cameron (and all of us) loved.
They explored architectural designs that inspired them, specifically minimalist concepts and styles. Ultimately they aspired to make a lamp that embodied a minimalist ethos, but also was as cool and dynamic as possible.
One image they kept coming back to was the striking scene of the monolith from the opening of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This image became a North Star as Cameron and Ryan toiled with different designs for months, iterating and refining their vision for Monos. Hundreds of 3D prints of cubic diffuser form factors, and the internal shells were made. With each iteration, they attached LEDs with care onto the internal shell, then covered it with the diffuser and evaluated it, toiling over minor details like overall size, proportions, brightness, and producing evenly lit lamp faces.
Finally, they got the concept to a point where they were excited to share it with the rest of the team, and presented it.
The Fluora team liked the product, thought it had potential and wanted to get it in front of customers. We brought it to a conference in New York City we were displaying Fluora at last Summer, where it became the star of the show. Once we saw Monos resonate with random people that knew nothing about LED art or Fluora, we knew it was a winner, and our next product was born.
