Floating Tiktok Logo Wall Light

This is a very easy build. No expensive tools needed, just a craft knife, a printer and some glue. Super satisfied with the results, I'm particularly pleased with how the lamp sits out from the wall with a continuous halo of light. The supports don't cast any unnecessary shadows so, this is what I mean when I say "floating" light. If your interest is piqued read on as I explain the process.

Lastly, I get the impression that folks from the maker community are not necessarily Tiktok junkies but I bet they know lots of people, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews that would absolutely love this wall lamp for Christmas ;)

Although this wall light is made from plastic and foam board it is essentially a papercraft project. It's just cutting and folding and gluing.

MATERIALS:

A3 3mm black foam board...€1.50

A3 5mm white foam board...€1.50
Color filters...€15
LED strip...€13

Plastic folder...€1.30

total cost of materials: €32

I only needed a small amount of the color filters I hope I can use them for many other projects. So you could argue the material costs to be more like €20.

TOOLS: Printer, craft knife, steel ruler, cutting mat, masking tape, contact glue, hole punch and hammer.

Tiktok logo design is cool. I'm not a user of the app and I know very little about graphic design but it's not hard to recognize a well thought out logo that's simple, colorful and fun. It's like two badly lined up layers reveal the red and blue colors that almost look like a mistake but they have a way of making your eyes take a second look. Success!
So I drew the logo as best I could from observing images online and here is a pdf of what I printed out to act as a stencil for cutting out the shapes.

Btw, I couldn't find information online about who designed the logo to be able to credit them here.

The black square is 12 inches (30 cm) on each side with a 2 inch (5 cm) round over in the corners. Maybe foam board is not the best material for this design but the matt black color is perfect. You could make it from thin plywood or MDF or sheet metal. I already had the black foam board so I went with it. This way I don't need to paint it black later on which would be the case with wood or steel 😎

In some of these shots you can see my first attempt to make the face plate of the lamp. it turnned out to be a bit too tight for maneuvering the LED strip around the cutout and you can see a big gash on the curve at the bottom 🤦. There was no way around it. It had to be replaced.

Print out a copy of the template of the colored pieces and use the pieces for a trial run. Now you can see where everything goes and your in control

l got these color filters before I even had a project to use them for. What prompted me to use them to make a Tiktok logo lamp was when I saw how interesting they look when overlapped just like the logo.
This was pretty easy. I just put the printout underneath the colored filters which, being transparent, meant I could see the lines and cut them out. Then I put all the pieces in place using masking tape but not pressing too hard so that it wouldn't tear the black foam board later when removing it.

The filters come with protective film on both sides. So I marked on the film where the foam board edges were lining up on the filters. This gave me a borderlines for applying the glue.

I numbered the areas on the foam board where each filter piece goes so that way I went about applying the glue to both surfaces of each piece at the same time. I took off the protective film on the side of the color filters I was going to glue but left it on on the other side because that side had the markings on it. Once all the pieces were glued in place I removed the protective film from that side too

Contact glue is very good for gluing lots of different things so it's ideal when you're gluing different materials together such as here. Also a big advantage of using contact glue is the instant bond once both surfaces are brought together. It's true you can also make a mistake so it's good to have extra material just in case

This LED strip was a full kit I bought in the hardware superstore Leroy Merlín. It's a French chain I put a link in the beginning to the actual kit I bought but the same kind of thing is available in your local Home Depot or similar. I just wanted a white LED strip but I liked the way this product also gave me the option of changing the warmth of the white light and the intensity. But that meant having to incorporate the sensor for the remote, so I decided to punch a hole out of the face to expose it. The strip also comes with an adhesive backing and you can cut it to size. The whole pack is perfect for somebody who hasn't a clue about electronics like me.
As you can see from the photos I placed the LED strip on the back of the foam board. IMPORTANT: The LEDs are casting their light towards the wall so it's an indirect light that you see reflected back, much better than having the LEDs blinding you with direct light.

I needed to make a box at the back so the logo would sit out from the wall and also give a bit of distance for the LEDs to merge their light and not have over illuminated and under illuminated spots in the lamp fitting. I wanted the logo to appear to float so I also needed the sides of the box to be transparent or at least translucent.

I bought a plastic folder to make the transparent plastic walls. I cut out 4 strips 8 inches by 2 inches and a ittle extra for the tabs. A 10 inch square of white foam board became the back-plate. I glued it all together with more contact glue. I sanded the tabs of the plastic walls just in case the glue needed a more rough surface for adhesion

With a few pencil marks to guide me and again, sanding the tabs of the plastic walls, I applied the contact glue and carefully brought the pieces together.

THE END