Inside the Design of Benchmade: The Ray Collection
The initial goal behind Ray’s mid-century design was simple: create a pendant lamp with a modern shape that evoked the playful spirit of its namesake, Ray Eames. But as the old adage goes, simplicity can be the most difficult of all concepts. With one of our longest development timelines to date, Ray took over a year to get just right.
To make the silhouette, our designers first considered the kind of light they wanted the fixture to emit. “We looked at the concept of a halo or having a shade within a shade to see how we could optimize light quality,” says Sarah Hashiguchi, a former Schoolhouse employee and the lead designer on the Ray. With that in mind, our design team set out to achieve a celestial glow through a clean, bowl-like shape that would work as surface mount, sconce, and pendant.
Once the shape was decided, our design team began researching a color palette, aiming to stay true to Schoolhouse’s signature vintage-inspired style while introducing playful, sophisticated options, too. “We wanted to explore Schoolhouse’s take on primary colors, bringing in hues that felt fresh but still aligned with our design ethos,” Hashiguchi says.
The result: five unique finishes—Dune, Pool, Paprika, Satin Black, and Shell White. While Satin Black and Shell White are Schoolhouse classics, Dune reimagines a classic marigold, and Pool’s inspiration is, well, in the name. Paprika, a rich yet muted red, took the longest to develop, going through several iterations—not too cool, not too warm—to capture the just-right balance. Now, the line has expanded to include two new green hues: Alder, a forest green, and Laurel, a cool sage.
The last piece of the Ray puzzle was to make sure all aspects—the steel shade, minimal rod, glass diffuser, and internal parts—would work well together as a whole. When the Schoolhouse design team was in the final stages of prototyping the Ray pendant, they noticed a problem: the internal hardware could be seen if you were looking at the fixture from a side angle. After a couple weeks of problem solving, they landed on developing a custom fitter that would hide all of the internal hardware. Hashiguchi explains, "We decided to redesign it because the details matter."
The pendant isn’t the only fixture where the details were important. When designing the sconce and surface mount, the team spent weeks trying to figure out what configuration would result in the best installation experience for you at home. The biggest challenge was making sure that the glass shade was secure but also easy to take on and off in both a wall-mounted and ceiling-mounted application.
During their research, our team wasn’t able to source the part that would solve this problem, so they decided to design one in-house. The result is a custom, concealed lever located at the base of the fixture. Now, by turning the lever, you can easily remove the shade and change out the light bulb.
The final Ray is a light that pays homage to the rich color palette of the 1960s while embracing modern craftsmanship. (Bonus: It looks stylish in about any room it inhabits.) Equal parts persistence and creative problem-solving, the Ray comes together to cast a modern glow wherever it goes.
