Next has come up trumps with their lighting range this season. They’ve got some very funky contemporary lights suitable for all budgets. Here are some of our favourite picks.

The Smoke crackle table lamp, £32, is a lovely design and the lamp base is very attractive.

The Blake 9 light, £130, is a great contemporary light in designer style.

We love the Stag head light, £25, which will light up your wall in style – it’s not just a lamp, but a nice piece of wall decor too

The Rover dog table lamp, £30, is super cute too and very quirky.

For something a bit different, how about a white lit bay ball, £35. Have it as a faux flower decoration in the day, then turn it on and add a bit of atmosphere to your room.

Also in the Blake range is the Blake 15 light, £200. It’s a striking light to have in the centre of a room – we can see it working well above a dining table, for example.

In terms of standing floor lamps, the Hanbury plum floor lamp, £100, would fit in well with a plum or purple decor scheme.

We can’t resist the bow tie dog table lamp, £45 – very characterful!

Do you have a favourite?

This isn’t any old desk lamp, this is the Kartell Taj task lamp….and what a fab light it is!

The designer piece is more like a contemporary sculpture than a table lamp, with its sleek, smooth, unjointed finish that gently curves up and over. It’s a great option if you’re looking for something different, that will double up as a form of art, to light up your room.

With its LED technology, the lamp provides an ample source of light for use on a desk or side table and it certainly beats the usual style of desk lamps hands down.

The Kartell Taj task lamp is available from John Lewis.

What mood are you in today? With this unusual Philips light, you can change your home lighting to reflect whatever mood you happen to be in.

The LivingColours Bloom mood light will bathe your room in the colours of your choice. Whether you want bright and invigorating shades, or soft soothing pastel hues, there’s a colour to suit you.

A simple remote control allows you to select the colour you fancy, then dim or adjust it to the right intensity. Plus, there are settings to save your three favourite colours to memory for quick recall purposes.

If you fancy being illuminated in colour, then John Lewis have the white lamp in stock for £60.

It’s a similar idea to the KOH Concepts lamp that we reviewed recently, but the main difference with the Philips mood light is that you can change the colour as you please, rather than being stuck with just one lighting colour.

What do you think of these colour lamps? Is coloured lighting the way to go, or would you rather just stick to your usual lamp bulb? Do let us know in the comments below.

Fresh design doesn’t have to involve new components. In fact, we’re always on the lookout for funky new designs involving recycling and up cycling.

These lovely drum lamps are a perfect example of this. They’re made by designer Willem Heeffer and have been constructed from old washing machine drums. His goal is to use locally sourced and recycled materials and transform them into products that are totally different from their past.

That’s certainly been achieved with these lamps, which are vastly different from their humble beginnings.

The lamps are available in a variety of powder coated colours, including pink, slate and blue. You can find out more, plus ordering information, on Willem’s website.

As far as contemporary, funky and modern lighting goes, the KOH lamp ticks all the boxes.

This unusual lamp provides a glowing colour of light in a form that is contemporary in design and unusual in function.

The KOH lamp was designed by Christophe d’Orey, who was inspired to create the concept after a trip to an African village. At night, the villagers gathered around a campfire, putting bulbs inside coloured containers to create atmospheric lighting.

His KOH lamp also uses a basic item – in this case a simple plastic water container (rather reminiscent of a petrol or jerry can) – to create a funky modern light. The container is made from coloured plastic and when a special light bulb is placed inside and turned on, it glows beautifully.

The KOH lamp is available in eight different colours – orange, green, magenta, purple, lime green, lagoon, bamboo green or blue – and comes boxed with easy-to-follow instructions for putting it together.

One of main benefits of the lamp is that it’s incredibly lightweight, which means that moving it around is very easy. The light it emits isn’t bright, so it’s not the most ideal lamp to use as a bedside light, for example. However, it is perfect for creating atmospheric lighting in a room and the colourful glow of the orange lamp was calming and soothing.

It’s not the most aesthetically pleasing lamp – realistically, it does look like a petrol can – but depending on the design of a room, it could easily be used in a corner of a contemporary or modern living room. However, we particularly liked the idea of using it outside. For garden lighting it is ideal, as you can easily carry the lamp out and the electrical cable is long enough to stretch to a plug in point.

For barbecues, outside dining or simply enjoying a glass of wine in your garden in the evening, this lamp provides just the right amount of soft light. For more impact, you could use more of the lamps grouped together or arranged in rows, or for a lively party, mix together a number of different coloured lamps.

The KOH lamp costs $150 from KOH Concepts, and has free shipping to the UK.

Navy in name, but not in colour, this well designed tripod style floor lamp will provide essential lighting and style to a contemporary home.

The lamp gets its name from its nautical inspiration and its seafaring tripod structure. The shiny metal chrome detailing contrasts well with the natural wooden legs of the lamp, and its finished with a neutral white lamp shade.

From our point of view, one of the best features of this design is that its height adjustable, so you can raise or lower the legs (just like an actual tripod) and set the height of the shade at the exact position you require.

For such a functional and fresh lighting design, the Navy floor lamp is available for a super fantastic price – just £79 (instead of the typical high street price of £237) from Made.com.

We’re having a ‘funky lights seem like buses’ kind of time at the moment….as just as we find one fab design light, along comes another one that’s just as good.

So today we can’t help but bring you another lovely light, this time based on the classic computer game, Tetris.

This brilliant Tetris light not only evokes the feel of the classic game, but it also brings with it a tiny bit of game play too. Okay, so it’s not quite like the real thing, but you can take the different shaped blocks apart and rebuild the design of your lamp, which is pretty cool.

The lamp comes with seven multi coloured Tetrominoes which fit together, plus a mains adaptor and cable, and it’s perfect for using on a table.

Firefox have the Tetris lamp in stock for just £29.99 – a worthy investment for die hard Tetris fans.

Amazingly, this Zade table lamp is made from two old plastic bottles and is a brilliant example of recycling in action.

The flower design lamp head is crafted from an empty Lucozade bottle and an Oasis bottle. The bottles are cleaned and sandblasted to create an opaque surface, before being dyed into bold colours.

The lamp itself is both decorative and functional and can be bent and angled to your desired position.

The Zade lamps are made to order and a choice of colours are available. They can be ordered for £69 from Bouf.