After founding his studio in 2016, the first thing designer Tom Chung did was pull together a collection for the 2017 Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair. The event proved lucky for Chung when Christian Grosen, Muuto’s design director, stopped by the booth on opening day. “Christian was adamant about licensing this light on the spot,” recalls Chung.

Last October, Muuto unveiled the light, called the Beam Lamp, a desk light of anodized aluminum fashioned after an old-style car’s headlight. Unusually, it shines from LEDs at both ends, one side dimming as the other brightens. Achieving this effect proved challenging: “Most of the time, you’re buying an LED with a preprogrammed chip,” says Chung. “Because of the unique function the light has, we had to build it from scratch.” Chung asked a friend to help craft the LED’s code in Arduino (a popular electronic proto-typing platform), which laid the groundwork for Muuto’s team. Says Chung: “When I’m thinking of ideas, I want to do something that hasn’t been done before.”