Duke began as part of a challenge from Vizcom after their team discovered my Flamingo Lamp. The brief was simple: integrate Vizcom into my design process, develop the next tubular animal lamp, and deliver a working prototype ready for San Francisco Design Week, all within six weeks.

I explored two approaches. The first used Vizcom to reinterpret my existing designs and generate new directions. The second proved more effective: using Vizcom to build upon my own sketches and visual language. One idea quickly stood out, a duck-inspired desk lamp.

Duke was born.

Duke is part of an ongoing exploration into how simple forms can suggest character without relying on detail. Loose inspiration was taken from the posture of a duck and reduced into a series of bent tubular elements, creating something that sits between a functional object and a character piece.

Throughout the process, I combined sketching, CAD, KeyShot and Vizcom’s AI-assisted visualisation to rapidly test ideas, proportions and CMF before building the working prototype.

Despite the demanding timeline, the process felt efficient, enjoyable and surprisingly natural.

Will I use Vizcom again?

Duck yeah!