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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

how do you do a lightbulb?

i enjoyed this article about samuel wilkinson, and his challenge to re~design the standard low energy lightbulb, while maintaining an aesthetic, keeping a design about it, but journeying "beyond the safe and familiar".

"there are certain object types that have a kind of 'naturalness' about them, a taken-for-grantedness, so ubiquitous are they or long-standing. the incandescent light bulb is one of these. ask someone to sketch one for you and you're more than likely to end up with the familiar round glass form that narrows at the bottom (or top, depending on which way up you're visualising it) to form its metal contact."






you can read more of the article which architonic featured here and you can visit samule wilkinson's own site here. both are completely enjoyable reads.

just think, if someone asked you to re~design something as simply shaped, as utilitarian and already perfect as the standard lightbulb, just what would you come up with? it's an interesting question and it would be doubly interesting to see everyone's results. enjoy!