Product Design · Design for Licensing

Cubos

A line of collectible display furniture: modular, LED-lit acrylic cubes that snap together on a wall or a surface to turn a collection of plushies, figures, and keepsakes into a glowing, ever-changeable display.

Role Lighting · Soldering · Sourcing
Team 5-person team · USC
Type Physical Product · 2026
Cubos Collectible Display Furniture title slide
Cubos · Collectible Display Furniture · ACAD 455: Designing Products for Licensing · view the full deck ↗

Display a collection the way it deserves

Collectors pour personality into what they own, but most of it ends up crammed on a shelf or hidden in a box. Cubos is a system of clear acrylic display cubes in four sizes that mount on a wall or stack on a surface. Each cube is lit from its base, and a one-way mirror finish creates an infinity-mirror glow that frames whatever is inside. Because the modules are interchangeable, the layout is never finished. It grows and rearranges with the collection.

Four ideas in one object

🧩

Modular by design

Cubes come in small, medium, large, and large-flat sizes that interlock, so any layout can be built, expanded, or reshuffled.

💡

Lit from within

Each base houses its own LED strip, soldered in a pattern that lights every edge of the acrylic so the whole structure glows.

🪞

Infinity-mirror effect

One-way mirror film and mirrored inserts turn each cube into a depth illusion that makes the contents float.

🖼️

Wall or surface

The same modules mount vertically as art or sit horizontally as a tabletop display, so they fit any space.

From sketches to rough form

We started broad with coffee tables, desks, and lamps before landing on a modular cube system. Cardboard mockups tested how the modules would interlock, and clear acrylic medium-fidelity models proved out the proportions and the stud-and-base connection.

Initial concept sketches for Cubos
Initial sketches exploring furniture forms before the cube system
Low-fidelity cardboard prototypes
Low-fidelity cardboard prototypes of the interlocking modules
Medium-fidelity clear acrylic prototypes
Medium-fidelity acrylic models testing proportion and fit

Building the real thing

We hand-fabricated the final system: bonding acrylic cubes with solvent, building base panels with channels routed for wiring, spray-painting the bases so light escapes only through the studs, and 3D-printing insert pieces to adapt the bases to each cube size.

Bonding acrylic to form the cubes
Bonding the acrylic cubes with solvent
Base panels with wiring channels
Base panels with channels for wiring the lights
Spray painting the base panels
Spray-painting bases so light shows only through the studs
3D printed insert pieces
3D-printed inserts to fit different cube sizes
Lighting pattern with soldered light strips
Each stud gets its own strip, soldered so every side is lit
Infinity mirror build with one-way mirror film
Mirror inserts and one-way film create the infinity effect

The details that took iteration

Keeping cubes in place

Smooth acrylic on smooth acrylic slid around. We tested balloons over the studs, spray-painted friction surfaces, and electrical tape before landing on a hold that felt secure but still let cubes lift off freely.

Getting an even glow

A single light source left dark edges, so we gave every stud its own strip and soldered them in a pattern that pushes light through all four sides of each cube for a uniform glow.

Experiments to add friction between cubes and base
Friction experiments: balloons, spray paint, and tape on the studs
Soldering the lighting and testing the glow
Soldering the lights and testing the edge-lit glow

Designed to ship and sell

Because the brief was designing a product for licensing, we took it through to packaging: a reverse tuck-end box with die-cut styrofoam inserts that cradle each cube and base, plus protective film over the mirrored surfaces, branded and ready for a shelf.

Cubos packaging design with box and die-cut inserts
Reverse tuck-end box with die-cut styrofoam inserts

Cubos, lit up

A finished product, not just a concept

Cubos went from open-ended sketches to a working, hand-fabricated, retail-ready product: acrylic cubes, custom-wired lighting, an infinity-mirror finish, and packaging to match. It is the kind of end-to-end build where I get to own both the idea and the craft of making it real.

My role: I owned the lighting design and soldering and led material sourcing, and contributed to the bill of materials and tech pack that made Cubos a manufacturable, licensable product.