Gantri’s Ian Yang on Making Gorgeous Lighting at a Good Price

A truly beautiful piece of lighting can transform a room – and often costs more than we might think at first (well-lit) glance. Ian Yang, CEO and founder of Gantri, understands that push (toward great lighting) and pull (away from $1800 lamps). But Yang has long investigated the space between impulses: His education took him to the London School of Economics, but also revered art school Central Saint Martins. As a kid in China, he toured factories with his parents, who has a global logistics firm – and when he moved to San Francisco, he joined TechShop, a maker space fueled by a community fluent in the next-wave manufacturing processes like 3D printing. The result of all those influences is Gantri: “At Gantri, we’re rethinking how lighting is designed, made, and sold using 3D printing,” he says, in this week’s Milkshake. “We’re supporting independent designers and…