Hasta La Ideas

The Plumen low energy lightbulb, designed by Hulger and Sam Wilkinson, has won the 2011 Brit Insurance Design of the Year award…

Hulger and Wilkinson’s creation succeeds in bringing beautiful sculpted forms to the otherwise fairly humble low energy bulb. But it’s not just a pretty thing: the Plumen 001 apparently uses 80% less energy and lasts eight times longer than an incandescent bulb. As Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum, put it: “It’s a bulb that doesn’t need a shade and so goes a long way to make up for the loss of the Edison original.”

The Plumen 001, along with the other shortlisted designs, is on show at the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year exhibition at the Design Museum until August 7 2011.

And here’s writer Will Self’s take on the winning work, included because, well, ‘judges comments’ simply don’t get much better than this: “I don’t think any of the judges feel this is the dernier cri in terms of what will be done with the low-energy light bulb, but if you’ll forgive the pun – they are definitely a light leading the way. 2011 was not a year to reward high-end design devised purely for conceptual reasons or added-value results. We felt these bulbs were neat, appealing and covetable in the right, affordable way. Light is, of course, primary to design, without it there can be very little, if any. The design of light sources is thus an elemental component of a design aesthetic.”

The Plumen is available to buy, here, and is £19.95 in the UK. More information at designmuseum.org and also plumen.com.