Bright Handle

Bright Handle began with a simple but radical question: what if a door handle could speak through light?

By integrating coloured light into one of architecture’s most anonymous objects, the handle became more than hardware. It became a signal, an interface and a carrier of identity.

When Bright Handle was presented in Milan, the response was immediate. Nearly a thousand people from 43 countries expressed interest in the product. Since then, it has gone on to become the most widely published door handle in the world, appearing in design and architecture media across the globe.

Bright Handle is an early example of a recurring theme in Lervik’s work: technology is most interesting when it stops feeling like technology.

An everyday object became something people suddenly noticed.

Bright Handle is a design innovation by the Swedish designer Alexander Lervik, dated 2000. The work is produced by Assa Abloy, which manufactures and distributes it, while the design originates in Lervik’s studio. In the portfolio it is listed under accessories, innovation.

Alexander Lervik is a Swedish designer whose work spans furniture, lighting, product design and collectible design. His practice combines function, storytelling, technology and conceptual experimentation, moving between industrial production, limited-edition objects and design art. He trained at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm and runs his studio in Österlen in the south of Sweden.

The project belongs to a body of work that is represented in museum collections including Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo and the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg, and that has been covered by international design and news media. Related works can be found through the furniture, lighting and collectible design pages and in the complete portfolio.