Nordic design meets Italian style in our new home.
New Scandinavian design lamps by Pholc plus talking about Scandinavian and Italian design, and the latest nordic design trend with Nina Jobs and Stina Sandwall
For the lighting design of our home we choose a mix of Italian and Scandinavian design lamps, including lamps by Pholc.
We started the works of our home exactly one year ago and I am sharing in the next months with you something more about the project, our design choices and the renovation works. I’m starting today from one of the latest elements that usually people adds into their homes – lamps – but which, actually, needs to be decided much before, already in the design phase.
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Scandinavian design lamps | Donna by Pholc
Donna is a series of lamps designed by Nina Jobs and Stina Sandwall for Pholc.
The lamps are in aluminum but looks soft and feminine, as they are inspired by pleated fabrics. In fact, they have a distinctive fluted surface and matt finish, which add texture and warmth to the space.
We choose in particular the Donna Line 120 to enlighten our dining table and two Donna Wall lamps for the living area.
I particularly loved their color – linen – because it perfectly fits with the colors of the walls of our living room, where we choose a limewashed paint in havana color.
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Interview with Nina Jobs and Stina Sandwall
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About Donna | Scandinavian design lamps
/ Where did you take the inspiration for Donna lamps
We both are big fan of fashion and its endless source of inspiration
For Donna we imagine an elegant woman wearing a pleated hat as in the late fifties!
Maybe an Italian woman since they are so often well dressed! There for also the name DONNA!
We wanted to combine both soft shapes and hard material to release a lamp for public environments as well as for the home.
/ How did you choose the color options for the lamps
Color was worked out with Maja, the CEO of the brand Pholc.
But since we work in a hard material with a pleated shape, we wanted the surface of the lamp to
have a feeling of soft fabric, pastels and black!
Colors that are easy to use in various interiors.
|| Donna wall lamps are available in 7 different colors. Donna line lamps in 4 different colors.
/ In Italian Donna means Woman: is this the idea behind the naming?
As two proud female designers with strong opinions and with our source of inspiration from
women and fashion, the choice of the name Donna felt right.
/ Was it challenging to put the design from the idea into a real product? Any particular material
choice?
Stina is a queen of steel material and Nina has worked a lot with soft materials. It was a challenge to
merge both materials in the way we wanted. In consultation with Pholc and the production
possibilities they had available, we concluded that the lamp would have the exact precision and
surface we wanted through extruded aluminium.
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About the designers
/ Tell us a bit about you and your experience
We have collaborated with different design projects since quit many years now! Beside we run our
own companies and design work on an international level. For Pholc it has been a pleasure and great
teamwork to create Donna!
/ Scandinavian design versus Italian design: what are the main differences and points in common you are seeing?
It’s like you compare the two countries!
Italy with its colors, great food and wine, sense of fashion,
elegance. Many design icons as Gio Ponti, Vico Magistretti , Bruno Murani etc. Long tradition of
designs and you can see that they love it!
Sweden a bit more about grey scale, colder weather, solitude. We have a history of small-scale
manufacturing where wood is often at the center of furniture and objects as this is such a great asset
in our country. Our small scale has probably shaped us into the clean forms we often use with a large
functional mindset. All this mirror the design too even if Sweden has become more borderless in design expressions.
Swedish companies and designers have a great desire to work more and more from an
environmental perspective. That drives our development in a positive and necessary direction in
many ways with we are very proud of.
|| Be inspired: Ten ideas to steal from Italian style interiors
/ What do you think about trends
Trends are less! You are more free now to work with your own signature, but anyways you should always be
aware of trends because trends can be a tool of how quickly things change in our world.
For us trends is not just about the color of the season it is about bigger things moving in the right or
wrong direction on our earth.
/ Please share one nice trend you are seeing in Sweden coming up and that could be inspiring for us?
Many design companies have come a long way in working with sustainability, and we as designers
can be involved and influence in a positive direction. This is one of the strongest trends in Sweden
right now in combination with a more free expression in form.
Stina Sandwall& Nina Jobs
