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LIGHTING THE WAY

Sustainable Lampshades for the British Heart Foundation

In support of their bold move toward sustainability, the British Heart Foundation commissioned me to design and produce five bespoke lampshades for the launch of their new Concept Store in Edinburgh, a flagship location showcasing their Store of the Future. If successful, this aesthetic will roll out across stores UK-wide — making these lampshades part of a potential visual shift across the entire brand.

Client:

British Heart Foundation
 

Project:

Store of the Future – Sustainable Lampshade Commission
 

Location:

Straiton Retail Park, Midlothian, Straiton, Loanhead, Edinburgh
 

Timeline:

January to May 2025

 

Store Opening:

1st May 2025
 

Role: Creative Artist

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PROJECT GOALS

  • Design five standout lampshades using repurposed single-use plastics, with a focus on environmental messaging

  • Embrace the British Heart Foundation’s signature red branding as the unifying colour palette

  • Integrate materials that retain visible branding (e.g. Parcel Force, Tesco) to spark awareness

  • Create a bold, meaningful centrepiece to hang above the customer service area

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CREATIVE APPROACH

To begin, I developed a 50cm diameter prototype shade that was presented during the client’s creative meetings. This early piece captured the concept and helped green-light the full production. Each of the five lampshades features a custom-designed wrap made from a red mix of LDPE (Low-Density Polyethylene) plastics.

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Materials included:

  • A full Parcel Force delivery bag, deliberately used to show its logo and branding

  • Plastics from Tesco, Wilko, TK Maxx, The Pet Company, and more

  • Bubble wrap donated by BHF staff, repurposed as texture-rich layers​

Each lampshade tells a story — not only of waste reimagined, but of everyday brands recontextualized through a sustainable lens.

A SIGNATURE TOUCH

Every lampshade was protected in a branded, repurposed fabric drawstring bag — a hallmark of my practice and a signature part of my customer experience.

 

Not only are the bags sustainable and reusable (ideal for everything from laundry bags to everyday storage), but in this case, they served an extra function: protecting the shades from dust during store installation while contractors completed their work on-site.

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CHALLENGES AND HIGHLIGHTS

  • Transport logistics: Getting the completed lampshades to Edinburgh called for special handling. To ensure they arrived in perfect condition, I chose to personally deliver them by car.​​

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  • Creative highlights: Crafting the layered LDPE textures and branding visibility was a rewarding design challenge. Each wrap was carefully composed to honour both aesthetic and material narrative.

THE RESULT

  • The five finished lampshades now hang proudly above the customer service counter at the Concept Store in Edinburgh. They serve as a powerful visual statement of creativity, sustainability, and transformation — and are already inspiring conversations among customers and staff alike.

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  • With the store acting as a testbed for the new Store of the Future, these pieces could become a defining part of the British Heart Foundation’s retail identity across the UK.

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