The transition from wakefulness to sleep is one of the few rituals that remains universal—and yet it has become increasingly neglected. Surrounded by screens and artificial brightness, we carry daylight deep into the night. I started Nightside out of a desire to restore a sense of ritual to that passage: to design objects specifically for bedtime, when our surroundings should help us yield to rest, not resist it.
Science now affirms what instinct has always known: that the hour before sleep shapes the quality of our rest. But beyond data and studies, there is a simple truth—our nights deserve their own rhythm, a calm transition from the noise of the day to the quiet of the dark.
Redefining the Bedside Lamp
For decades, the bedside lamp has been an afterthought—essentially a repurposed table lamp. Its purpose has been to fill a room with light, not to support the rituals of winding down. Too often it floods the space with glare, or conversely, fails to provide enough focused illumination for reading or writing in bed.
I set out to invert this paradigm. Could a lamp both reduce ambient brightness and deliver a precise, controllable beam for bedtime tasks such as reading? Could it be designed not to banish the night, but to collaborate with it?
An Exploration of Light
The search for that balance led me to an unlikely muse: the theatrical spotlight. In theater, the spotlight brings bright clarity in darkness while preserving the mood. I began to wonder if that same principle could be brought to the bedside—a way to illuminate the page of a book or a small circle of the room while allowing the rest to fall gently away.
As a habitual night reader married to a light sleeper, I turned the problem into a personal experiment. I explored projection systems, optics, and lens geometry—first with cobbled-together proofs of concept, and later with CAD models and 3D-printed prototypes. Over several years, the project evolved from a fun design challenge into a serious endeavor that was ultimately rewarded with a utility patent for the optical projection system.
Form Follows Calm
The result of that process is the NS01, a lamp defined by precision and restraint. Its single warm-white LED is mounted in the base and emits light upward through the optical projection system, which in turn focuses it into a soft yet concentrated spotlight. The lamp’s translucent body diffuses a secondary glow—ambient light that illuminates only the bedside.
A tactile dimmer sits on the front of the lamp, easy to locate even in complete darkness. Every gesture, every lumen, has been considered for its impact on the surrounding night.
In the end, the NS01 is not designed to brighten a room—it’s designed to keep the night intact. It honors the subtle boundary between light and dark, serving those who read, reflect, or simply linger in the moments before sleep. It is, at its core, a design not for engagement, but for the act of letting go.
