Meet our Makers - In the Studio with Anony's Christian Lo

I started in home decor, and when I learned there was a whole school of lighting design, I was hooked. Furniture presents itself as it is. Lighting can transform a space — how it transitions through the day, how it dims, how it looks when it's off. The function is interesting, but the sculptural side is what holds me.

The industry runs on planned obsolescence — especially with LEDs. They last 50,000 hours, so designers think, "When the bulb goes, the lamp goes too." That's heartbreaking. We design everything faceted, no glue. Every connection is mechanical, which means every part is replaceable. The look is seamless, so the customer might not realize it, but you can change the bulb, replace a part, disassemble it for recycling. That sustainability matters to us.

Sustainability and functionality. Since we started, it's been about the designs, not the designer. That focus slows us down — our fixtures take one to two years to design, and we release roughly one a year. Some lighting companies release eight. We commit to the process.

We also manufacture in Canada whenever possible, which means understanding what's locally available before we start. A lot of reverse engineering from capacity. That's why so much of our work is in aluminium and steel — both recyclable, both available here.

The longevity was the draw — the life cycle of an LED matches the way we wanted to design. We track LED quality constantly. Early LEDs were green, harsh, prone to flicker. Now they can do warm, lasting, comforting light that matches incandescent or even candlelight. There's still a bias against LED in some quarters, but the quality is there.

We send tested bulbs with our fixtures. With LEDs you can buy the same nominal temperature — say 3000K — from five companies and get five different colours. So we source from ten to twenty manufacturers and test each one. Only the ones that meet our reference get shipped.

The interactive aspects. LEDs are low voltage, so we can integrate touch safely into the fixture itself. Wisp plays with that — you can move the shade up and down the cable, which changes the reflection and diffusion. It's modern technology used intuitively, not for its own sake. No remote, no app. You tap it.

Hugely. When I started, I thought about how a lamp looks on and how it looks off. Now there are sensors, dimming, colour-changing, programmed cycles. For a custom installation at Milky's Cafe, the light cycles through the day — cool and bright in the morning to match outside light, warming as the day goes on. Designed for zero glare. It's a comfortable transition you don't notice.

I sit in cafés a lot. I like talking to the regulars — people outside my design bubble. Being a designer means being open and empathetic. You're not designing for yourself; you're designing for someone else. You want the work to be welcoming.

They were one of the first distributors in Canada to carry us. When they approached us, I just loved what they were doing. In our industry, it's rare to see other women — especially in industrial or architectural spaces. I'm grateful Casson took a chance on us.