Euroluce 2025: Ten Lighting Discoveries That Captured Our Attention
By Ideaworks Creative Lighting Design team
Since its debut in 1976, Euroluce has become a leading international showcase for lighting design during Salone del Mobile (Milan Design Week). With over 300 top-tier exhibitors from around the world, the exhibition offers a window into how lighting continues to evolve. In our article “Euroluce 2025: Ten Lighting Discoveries,” we highlight the most inspiring innovations, offering a glimpse into the future of lighting through the lens of this year’s standout designs.
Today, lighting plays a vital role in our increasingly connected lives, influencing everything from sustainability and digital integration to personal wellbeing. It shapes how we feel, behave, and experience the spaces around us. Last week, our lighting design team members spent a few inspiring days at Euroluce. As always, the event delivered a wealth of ideas, innovations, and beautifully curated experiences.
Here are ten standout discoveries we’re still thinking about—and already looking to incorporate into our work.
1. Folio Lighting – Backlighting, Elevated
Folio continues to refine the art of backlighting. Their latest offering combines beautifully finished light panels with integrated options for spotlights, track, metal trims, etching, and curved forms.
This system invites creativity while delivering consistently smooth, high-quality light. We’re excited to collaborate with Folio in our London Experience Centre (LEC) on Great Portland Street and plan to showcase their finishes later this year.
2. Studio Waldemeyer – The Digital Candle
Moritz Waldemeyer’s ‘technological flame’ has long intrigued the lighting world and has reached a stunning new level. Displayed as part of a poetic installation at Galleria Rossana Orlandi, these digital candles blend cutting-edge LED tech with the romance of traditional candlelight.
We’re currently working with Studio Waldemeyer on a unique installation for our stairwell at our London Experience Centre, featuring these quietly mesmerising pieces.
3. Daniel Rybakken – Windows of Light
No artificial light can genuinely replicate the physiological benefits of natural daylight, but a few installations at Euroluce came surprisingly close to tricking the mind. From digital “windows” playing ultra-high-definition, 24-hour footage of skylines and vistas to tunable white light that subtly mimics daylight filtering through blinds, the illusion was powerful. These elements created an impressively immersive experience.
Daniel Rybakken’s Daylight for Vibia was a standout in this space. Minimal in form but rich in presence, the piece recreated the feel of natural light entering a room, bringing calm and orientation. As one of our designers said, “It wasn’t about the fixture, it was about the feeling.” Indeed, it serves as a compelling reminder of how light can shape our perception of time, space, and well-being.
4. Luce5 – Lighting That Performs
With a show-stopping demonstration of dynamic shelf lighting, Luce5 brought drama to the everyday. Their system shifts effortlessly between focused spotlights and full-surface washes, all from a single, hidden profile. While primarily designed for specific retail shelving, the underlying philosophy—animated, reactive lighting—is something we’re seeing more broadly. As a result, this approach is gaining traction across the industry. It's less about dimming levels and more about choreography.
5. Decorative Landscape Lighting – Nature, Reimagined
Outdoor lighting is becoming more expressive. From sculptural bollards to playful tree uplighting, manufacturers are rethinking how we illuminate the landscape. We were especially intrigued by Vibia’s conductive, magnetic charging pad, which makes their portable lanterns even more practical and beautifully integrated into outdoor environments. Also, their ground lights imitate lily pads, which look great around a pond.
6. A Splash of Colour
While most lighting schemes still lean towards warm whites and restrained tones, we noticed a subtle shift: moments of carefully introduced colour. When done thoughtfully, these elements added vibrancy without compromising elegance.
Expect to see more of this in projects where atmosphere and personality go hand in hand. Vibia was once again making itself noticed at the show with its colour casting and slow fade lights that also integrated gobos. These are available as recessed, surface, and shelf-mounted units
Image credit: Vibia
7. Vezzini & Chen
Anyone familiar with Euroluce knows that the experience extends well beyond the showgrounds, with just as much to discover in the events and showrooms scattered throughout Milan. At Galleria Rossana Orlandi, we came across the beautiful work of Vezzini & Chen—elegant lighting pieces that use the reflection within a glass bowl to create a dynamic, shifting image as you move past. This poetic use of reflectivity was a recurring theme across many installations. In particular, glass elements played a central role in the visual language of this year’s designs.
8. Mazu
Another great find, not located in the main Euroluce pavilions, was a company called Mazu in one of the surrounding zones. They showcased striking anodised planters integrated with a range of lighting solutions.
One standout piece featured a partially covered top that allowed a soft glow to illuminate the base of the stems—subtle, elegant, and beautifully atmospheric.
Another recurring theme throughout the show was using fully transparent fixtures—a design language popularised years ago by Philippe Starck’s iconic Ghost Chair. Marset presented a particularly strong interpretation of this trend, with a cohesive collection of transparent pieces across multiple formats.
Moreover, their execution was refined and visually striking, offering a standout example of how this aesthetic continues evolving.
10. Davide Groppie
Always the showman, Davide Groppie has mastered the art of an exhibition stand. His display always makes the best use of the space by showing us the effects his fittings can create, rather than a stand full of fittings. The master of the understated fitting, our new favourites include a small dark vessel placed on the floor with no apparent light output except the unexplained clean disc of light on the ceiling above. Meanwhile, a small round tennis ball luminaire also appeared to be suspended at an impossible angle by its very slender power cable.
Creative Lighting Design by Ideaworks
Since Ideaworks was founded in 1986, lighting design has been at the core of who we are. It’s where our journey began, and it remains one of the purest expressions of our craft.
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