It's September, which means the London Design Festival is on the way soon, along with our annual coverage of new designs which we love.

And here's the first of many - a project called Urban Camper by recent Camberwell College design graduate Chieh-Ting Huang.

These handmade structures draw on the symbolism associated with lanterns in both eastern and western cultures, and on a broader level, they attempt to encapsulate the contrast and contradiction in building elaborate wood cages and delicate paper shades.

According to Huang, there is a fundamental difference between how the notion of a ‘lantern’ is perceived in these two cultures.

"In the orient, the lantern is generally conceived as a lightweight portable lighting devise consisting of wood or bamboo, and paper. When wood is used, it forms the inner structure, giving shape and strength, forming a skeleton onto which paper is fixed as a membrane; it protects the inner flame from winds while allowing enough illumination to fulfil the lantern’s purpose.

Images of occidental lanterns in the mind are of hard metal cages and cold glass, such as the gas lighting, which was first invented in England in 17th century, and industrial or marine lamps. Moving beyond the different construction styles of the iconic lanterns of East and West, the original intention behind the creation of both is one and the same: to protect the light. Before the invention of electricity and the light bulb, the simplest and the most frequently used lighting might have been candles. But candles give only a weak light and have to be carefully protected from wind to prevent flickering or extinguishment. The lantern was the next logical step." he says.

Huang's objects also present a homage to humanity’s taming fire for lighting. The paper shades of these objects are made into diamond shapes, which is to illustrate the preciousness of lighting, and coloured in red and orange, so as to mimic the colour of fire.

The wood structure provides the protection of the lighting, but unlike metal and steel, it gives a warm and natural sense to the objects.