Spencer Hope, a Product Design major at Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University, earned a place in the finalist stage in a prestigious international contest, making him one of the most promising young designers on the planet.

Hope competed in the 2024 International Society of Furniture Designers INNOVATION DESIGN competition. Open to both design students and industry professionals on a global level, the annual competition promotes the outstanding work of the world’s finest designers and makers.

This year, a record number of entries was judged by a panel of ISFD board members and other industry professionals who evaluated each product’s innovation, construction, function, construction technique, and aesthetics.

Hope’s entry, a sconce dubbed “Empyrean,” was one of eight student finalist designs for 2024. Finalists’ pieces were judged while on display at the American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame in High Point, North Carolina from April 4-17, in conjunction with Spring High Point Market, a trade show that stands as the pinnacle of the home furnishings industry.

While he did not win, Hope found plenty of value in the opportunity to take part in the prestigious event and enlarge his network.

“Getting to connect with other students and professionals, listen to people who are far better than I can be right now, and be a part of the greater design world is just an amazing opportunity,” he said.

“Empyrean” was inspired by the awestruck emotions people feel when coming face-to-face with something that takes their breath away. The layered lighting fixture embraces its emitted light as a design element, using organic shapes and repeated geometry to cast a celestial glow onto the wall above.

“I wanted to convey the sense of beholding something,” Hope said. “There’s a higher energy that comes with this angelic light that I tried to capture in a material sense.”

The sconce began with a series of sketches, which helped Hope focus ideas for refinement in a CAD program. After finishing the design, he crafted a custom plywood form, vacuum-molded a black walnut veneer over that, and sanded the finish—all in the KCAD woodshop. Next, he cut the outer form, making a custom jig to guide the slots that would hold the lamp’s acrylic fins.

Once the wood form was ready, he clear-coated it to create a glossy finish on the surface. He then used the laser cutter in the KCAD FLEXlab digital fabrication facility to cut out the fins from 1/4" acrylic. Each fin was sandblasted to create a frosted look that would diffuse the light, then glued into place. Finally, he cut the stamped aluminum base, assembled the lamp, and added the wiring, lightbulb, and wall mount.

“There were a lot of challenges in this piece, specifically creating those slot cuts,” Hope said. “When I got to that point in the design, I was tens of hours into my development, and it's all behind a jig so you really can't eyeball anything.”

One of the questions with any piece of art or design is deciding when it’s complete. Hope explained, “There comes a point where everything's adhered, everything's together, and any more finishing is going to upset whatever surface treatment I've done. But in a more abstract sense, is a piece ever finished? I don't know. I think it becomes finished in what it can do and what happens when it lands in front of people's eyes. For my work to be finished, it has to be felt and received.”