Undiscerned Beauty. Unique Innovation. Flexible Customization…
These are the attributes of this unexpected new lighting system: SNAPS, from Art + Alchemy by Hubbardton Forge. As an interior designer, lighting retailer or lighting enthusiast, you get to unleash your creativity with this versatile lighting collection. With the stunning SNAPS lighting design, Hubbardton Forge is putting the creativity of custom lighting in your hands.
Whatever the size of a room, height of a ceiling or uniqueness of a space, the SNAPS lighting system provides a solution. Modular and scalable, it can easily be configured to almost any shape or dimension you can imagine, addressing simple to challenging lighting configurations, no electrician needed.
"I realized that if the conductor becomes a beautiful thing, then suddenly, it unlocks new doors. With SNAPS, the conductive leather straps are the essence of the fixture," says Hubbardton Forge Lighting Designer Andy Morter. Inspiration for the beautiful leather elements stems from the opulent leather detailing on vintage automobiles, furniture, antiques and even equestrian styling, bringing warmth, grandeur and unique movement to the collection.
The Essence of SNAPS
What is SNAPS exactly?
SNAPS is a patent-pending innovative lighting system that pairs distinctive leather, conductive technology and LED to extend your next light fixture’s reach as far as your imagination can take you.
Hubbardton Forge’s latest technology literally uses snaps to easily connect leather straps with hidden, low-voltage electricity, expanding design possibilities exponentially. Because the entirety of the leather elements are conductive, light modules can be added as needed as well.
“SNAPS is so easy to use and very easy to modify,” says Andrew Knapp, Vice President of Sales for Hubbardton. “You can make your lighting configuration bigger or smaller and you never have to kill the power.”
The snaps for which the collection is named connect the conductive leather straps, which are paired with universal 3000k dimmable LED modules, alabaster lighting diffusers and multiple mounting solutions. Wired into one junction box, your lighting can span a ceiling simply by snapping leather pieces together and adding additional alabaster/LED modules.
SNAPS, which debuts this week at October High Point Market in Hubbardton Forge’s Interhall (IH211) showroom, contains five core pieces: a wall sconce, a single pendant, a floor lamp, a multi-port with two straps and a multiport with four straps. Leathers in the mainstay collection come in white, black and chestnut. However, Hubbardton Forge, known for its customization capabilities, doesn’t stop at the basics. The company will also offer custom leather colors and finishes, as well as various leather strap sizes, adding limitless design possibilities fueled by your imagination.
Expanding Innovation
While Hubbardton Forge is breaking the lighting mold at October 2024 High Point Market with this novel and seemingly simple idea, designing and perfecting SNAPS has been a passion project, researched and designed to perfection for some time before its debut.
The lighting company discerned that electricity could be conducted by sandwiching low-voltage copper conducting tape in the leather as designers were working on other leather-detailed lighting designs. Adding button snaps created another electrical connection point allowing Hubbardton’s artisans to transmit the power from the junction box through the leather, the snaps and ultimately to the LED and alabaster light modules that also snap into place.
Once the technology was defined, Hubbardton’s lighting designers began to consider how this new flexible lighting technology could be used. What they learned is SNAPS can work anywhere. “Being able to hit a 25-foot ceiling or an 8-foot ceiling is what makes this,” Knapp notes. “SNAPS can be used for a semi-flush in a New England short-ceiling home or in a great room with a vaulted ceiling. You can add up to five additional pucks off the same driver.” It’s that versatile.
Hubbardton Forge will showcase several configurations for SNAPS at the collection’s debut at High Point Market. While that visual and the other educational elements surrounding this release will showcase the possibilities, that is truly only the beginning. When you look at the undulating leather straps that create this artistic way to bring light to a space, you can let your lighting design imagination run wild. SNAPS is designed to run wild with you!
