Ingo Maurer Zettel Light
I coveted this amazing Ingo Maurer Zettel light for many years. Finally we treated ourselves bought it. Yay! The light comes with no instructions or help with how to style it, so I have documented what I did here.
Assembly
My electrician installed the light fitting, following the instructions in the box. Leaving me to have fun with the rest. The main light fitting consists of the unit surrounded by satin heat resistant glass, with the whole thing then covered in a thin wire mesh. This wire mesh comes above the glass, and is what you push the spokes in to. There are holes in the top, so the spokes can be pushed through if you want a high display.
The light fitting, comes with 80 spokes (half short/ half long) and around 40 stoppers; 80 bulldog clips and a packet of pre printed japanese paper sheets. Each of the spokes has a little rubber tip – and the bulldog clips are just common or garden mini bulldog clips.
To build up the light fitting, you need to thread the wires at different angles through the mesh. Its a bit like reverse kerplunk!
Depending upon whether you want a flat display, or a round display will determine the angle / height that you put them in at. I wanted mine to be as large a ball as possible, and fairly even all the way round. Little rubber stoppers are provided for where the wire is pointing down, or where you want to raise the height of one. It takes a fair bit of manoeuvring the spikes to get the shape you want. Its important to make sure that the papers can hang down freely from each one. The bulldog clips can slide up and down the shaft of the spokes, but this will only free up a small amount of space.
I stuck all my spokes in randomly, but this led to lots of readjustment. If I was to do it again, I would start up high, and come down in waves. Maybe there isn’t any way of avoiding the readjustment, but this would give you the least re adjustment time.
By the last few spokes, its quite difficult to find a spare bit of mesh to fill in. This is the view from the top.
A set of Japanese papers come in a nice little envelope….
They are pre printed with doodles or foreign phrases. The pre printed sheets are a little disappointing, as they don’t look like a huge amount of thought has gone in to them, but I think the point is really to customise and make your own. Ive doodled and sketched a few, you can see them here.
I did purchased a blank set of the sheets, to decorate my own. I may make a selection of sets, and change them with the seasons ! A few examples of papers I customised are detailed here.
The Finished Article
Once you are happy with the shape, you can add in the Japanese papers.And here is the completed Ingo Maurer Zettel light! The pop art picture in the back ground is a mosaic of my son (made with left over paint samples)
It looks great in the day time, but it is at its more spectacular when dark – with the light shining through the paper. 
Unfortunately my camera skills are not really up to capturing it in all its glory, but this will give you an idea.
When these pictures were taken our dining room was a bright red. We have subsequently redecorated in a far less headache inducing white! I was a bit worries that the Ingo Maurer Zettel light fitting would look a little bland against the plain back ground, but I still love how it looks.
This is not a cheap light fitting. We deliberated for a long time before buying it, and considered try to make my own version. If you fancy something similar, theres a link here to extremely skilled and crafty guy who made his own. He has done an awesome job, but he is clearly a fantastic DiYer – and even he admits that the shop bought design is worth the mullah. Respect to him for an awesome hack though!