Rupert Jasper’s Inlay shelf seems assured: vivid blue, clean-lined and cleverly engineered. Its designer is extra candid concerning the uncertainty that went into studying his craft.

There have been loads of days at Design Academy Eindhoven when Jasper felt fully misplaced. It was nearly the purpose, he says:

“From day one, it’s form of 100 per cent freedom, which is fairly daunting.”

From Deep Cove to Eindhoven

Jasper started nearer to residence at Langara Faculty, the place the two-year Design Formation program gave him a grounding in structure, interiors, product design and different disciplines.

Product design was the one which caught.

When the time got here to proceed his schooling, he had the choice of Emily Carr College however determined to look additional afield.

Design Academy Eindhoven supplied a really totally different form of expertise, and Jasper’s German passport made learning in Europe extra accessible.

“I felt like I had a little bit of a golden ticket, and I assumed I ought to actually make the most of this chance,” he says.

Eindhoven was much less about being proven the right way to design and extra about determining what sort of designer you wished to turn out to be.

“You bought to decide on and craft your personal schooling path,” Jasper says.

Tutors got here from totally different disciplines and introduced their very own approaches. Jasper describes durations of uncertainty and identification disaster moments, however says studying to navigate that uncertainty has proved helpful now that he’s working professionally.

After graduating in 2025, he stayed in Europe for nearly one other 10 months, working with a few designers and taking up tasks he loved.

He might have stayed longer, however Vancouver was all the time the plan. “I actually wished to come back again and work in Vancouver. It’s my residence. I like it right here.”

His route into ANDlight got here with unusually good timing.

Jasper had beforehand met ANDlight co-founder Lukas Peet whereas making an attempt to rearrange an internship throughout his research. The scheduling didn’t work out, however the connection remained.

About three weeks after returning to Vancouver, Jasper was downtown ready to fulfill a pal for espresso when he stopped exterior a showroom to have a look at a bunch of ANDlight fixtures.

Peet and ANDlight co-founder Caine Heintzman occurred to stroll up behind him. They have been there to {photograph} the merchandise.

The three chatted, Jasper talked about he had simply moved residence, and later that day Peet emailed to say ANDlight was hiring in manufacturing.

“It was form of a serendipitous second,” he says.

Jasper spent about 10 months engaged on the manufacturing aspect earlier than lately transferring into the corporate’s design division as a junior product designer.

“I really feel actually lucky,” he says.

Greater than a shelf

Alongside his work at ANDlight, Jasper’s been creating Inlay.

The system takes cues from mid-century wall-mounted shelving, with a pressed connector that provides energy and visible character.

This connection lets the shelving increase, contract and shift into totally different configurations, and Jasper is already contemplating how the identical system might work for benches, tables and different furnishings.

For IDS, Jasper completed the prototype in an nearly electrical blue.

A part of that was sensible: he wished it to face out in opposition to the present’s white partitions. A part of it was additionally a response to the area’s reasonably safer design palette.

“I discover a variety of the furnishings right here within the Pacific Northwest is a variety of beige and softer colors, so I wished to distinguish the piece,” he says.

Inlay was chosen for the IDS Vancouver 2026 Prototype Judges Selection Award by Tanja Breadner of Marrimor Objects , David Keeler of Present and Noah Morse of Sundays , in an exhibition curated by Kaito Forth .

The present additionally put Jasper in entrance of inside designers and designers — precisely the individuals who could ultimately specify or work with items like his.

“To satisfy these varieties of individuals and to make these connections and listen to what they’re on the lookout for, what’s catching their eyes. That was actually particular,” he says.