Dotty for Lula Dot

Designer Lucy Norman creates quirky lighting, furniture and jewellery by upcycling day-to-day household items in her London studio, making each piece unique, affordable and earth friendly. 

Graduating from the University of Brighton with a first-class honours degree in Product Design, Lucy won the engineering prize for best overall performance. Lula Dot soon followed in 2009 with the aim to upcycle London’s waste into lasting beauty. 

Since then, Lucy has exhibited her work at numerous galleries including Marsden Woo Gallery, Geffrye Museum and Colette in Paris. Her designs are currently on show at the Science Museum in London and the Museum of Design in Plastics, Bournemouth. 

Her latest projects have dealt with the problem of waste. She tackled this by reusing waste to create beautiful products, as well as encouraging emotional attachment to increase a product’s durability. In order to do so, Lucy works with a range of materials and objects to create a variety of lights, jewellery and furniture. 

The Light Reading chandelier is made from old, unused books. Lucy explains how so many books each year are sent to landfill as there is currently no infrastructure set up to recycle the paper from books; this is due to the low grade of paper and glue from the spine of the book which needs to be removed. Instead, Lucy uses these wasted books to create this extraordinary chandelier, by folding each page in half to produce a circular arrangement around a ceiling light. 

Lucy’s jewellery collection entitled Timepieces Adornments speaks for itself with its timeless designs. Made using the inside of broken watches and discarded clock faces, each piece is truly unique and special. Lucy uses cut out shapes reminiscent of constellation patterns and lunar skies; the irregular nature of these objects coupled with their delicate assemblage is what makes these items so distinctive.

Back In The Saddle is a seat made from a collection of old bike saddles found in and around Hackney and are assembled around two used bicycle wheels. It was originally commissioned by North South Ideas Gallery for their bicycle show in Highgate.

Lucy’s designs are available to purchase through numerous boutiques as well as her own website here.  

Helena Strutt