London-based designer Rachel Wingfield applies electroluminescent technology to the domestic realm. Wingfield, who was trained as a textile designer, creates bedding, wallpaper, and window shades using fabrics that incorporate a simple electronic circuit made of phosphor and silver inks. The phosphor’s base hue is a bluish white, but with additional dyes it can emit nearly any color of light. She uses ornamental, even Victorian patterns in the lustrous fabrics to give them a more homey feel. The result is part country cottage, part Starship Enterprise.

Under the name Loop.ph, Wingfield has invented a duvet cover that gets you up gradually without a jarring alarm. Called Light Sleeper, the cloth, which has a built-in timer, glows for 20 minutes to a “breathing” rhythm as the waking hour approaches. Her Digital Dawn window covering incorporates a vine pattern that creeps across the shade’s surface in response to the brightness of the room—the stronger the ambient light, the faster it grows. And a tablecloth embossed with a lace motif, called History Table, reacts to pressure, so that dishes leave a halo when cleared after a meal. For those who live, like Wingfield, in basement apartments or dark cities, the creations could help beat chronic winter blues.

Wingfield, who sells her bright ideas to the manufacturers of these fabrics, is also developing a line of institutional furniture—all with an eye toward making innovation more organic and less hard-edged. “I have quite a geeky obsession with materials and material science,” she says, “but I try to focus on the emotional experience.”