Winner: Product design of the year 2025. Cynics has designed the Asterisk* Lighting Series, an exploratory lighting design project.
The Asterisk Lamp serves as a metaphorical response to the digital age and consumer civilisation.

Constructed from PP hollow-core panels – a standard logistics packaging material – it reinterprets the fundamental symbol "*" of the digital era.

When this ultimate virtual symbol becomes physically manifested through industrial materials, the original protective packaging transforms into a lighting installation.

This material transubstantiation forms a subtle irony toward the consumption chain: meticulously protected commodities will ultimately decay, while their "discarded guardians" gain a rebirth through design intervention.

The Asterisk* achieves material redemption through the conceptual reprogramming of post-industrial PP hollow-core panels.

By manually transforming this ubiquitous, low-value logistics consumable into decorative luminaires, the project democratises aesthetic discourse – granting cultural legitimacy to industrial detritus.

Studio: Cynics
Project: Asterisk* Lighting Series