The week before all the big deadlines, I spent some time creating the last hemisphere for the fourth lamp. For this one, I wanted to do something different, something special – limited edition. I initially started by polishing the previous ones I created last week and then initiated the process to add some texture to the silver hemisphere.

I created an oxidising solution that turned the silver into dark grey/black. Initially I thought this effect would have looked really good, but actually, it didn’t seem to give a wow effect at all so I had to think of something better, more creative.

Since the material used to create the lamps was white Carrara marble, I thought creating some contrast with it would have been really good. What came to my mind was the idea of using a method called dye-sublimation to print a black marble image onto aluminium. Sublimation onto metal is a new, cutting edge, way to reproduce an image. Sublimation itself is the process of going from a solid to a gas, back to a solid – skipping the liquid state. For this, I chose two images: white marble and black marble. I knew black marble would have looked better on a white lamp, but I still wanted to test the other version too, so I printed both on two different aluminium sheets.

The image is first printed onto a transfer paper and then is adhered to pretreated aluminium (other substrates such as tile, wood, or glass are also available).

The aluminium and transfer paper are placed into a custom heat press, which is heated to temperatures exceeding 380 degrees Fahrenheit. While being subjected to extreme heat and pressure, the dyes from the transfer paper turn into a gas, are pressed into the surface of the metal, and then solidify into the treated aluminium. As the dyes cool they are permanently infused beneath the surface of the metal substrate.

Once the photos were printed, I started the usual process of turning that aluminium sheet into a hemisphere. This time it wasn’t as easy because actually one side of the aluminium was printed and so it was very likely that could have been scratched during the process. Fortunately, though all went well and I manage to get an awesome hemisphere with the image of black marble. I’m extremely happy with this outcome as I have no doubts this component will make the fourth lamp stand out from the others.