Toronto designer Jamie Wolfond explains the thinking behind his latest, triple-pronged creation with a riddle: “What can three things do well on the bottom [of a lamp], and what can three things do well on the top — and how do the three things on the bottom relate to those on the top?” Crack the code and you get the trifurcated floor lamp that Wolfond recently launched with Detroit-based furniture brand Floyd. A forked base provides stability, while the top branches out to form a cone-shaped lighting source and two supports for a curved paper shade. Together, these opposite ends add up to a sculptural, charming silhouette.

In addition to being a satisfying conceptual exercise, the design achieves Floyd founders Alex O’Dell and Kyle Hoff’s request for a lamp that emitted both direct and ambient light. “And I think even more than that, the brief was just to make something that reflected their company, which started off being sort of scrappy,” says Wolfond. He’s referring to Floyd’s first product, the Floyd Leg, which allows you to create a table from any flat surface.

Wolfond is similarly imaginative and resourceful. After countless paper and wire models, he arrived at the lamp’s “Y” shape in part because it can easily be broken down into components for more compact shipping. As he developed the form, Wolfond also explored materials. For the shade, he knew that he wanted to use paper thanks to its reflective and translucent qualities, and sourced an all-natural washi variety made from mulberry trees at one of the oldest such factories in Japan. (Wolfond first visited the factory more than a decade ago during a paper-making course he took at RISD.) To keep the focus on recyclability, the lamp’s frame is made from a durable powder-coated steel.

Next came the colours. The red-orange hue was an easy choice, but Wolfond was careful to ensure the black and white options didn’t feel too mechanical or sterile. “It’s a cool black and a warm white,” he says. “We spent a lot of time with samples, thinking about them in relation to each other and in relation to spaces.” Like the Y-Lamp itself, the colour scheme is a reminder that good things often come in threes.