Designers find exciting ways to showcase light bulbs.

The Plumen 001 is sexy, for a lightbulb. It’s also curvaceous, gorgeous, florescent  and a lot like vintage J. Lo. It lasts eight times longer than normal bulbs and uses 80% less energy. The Plumen is the brainchild of design company Hulger and Samuel Wilkinson and won the 2011 Brit Insurance Design of the Year, has a memorable logo:

…and is now available for fixtures in the Americas, Europe, the UK and most recently Japan.

The Plumen low energy bulb got its name from plumage, decorative feathers on self-confident birds. Peacocks, for one. Pop stars, another. But it’s not the only way to string a bulb. Equally illuminating are the stars that follow.

Artist Matt Johnson’s Star in a Jar was on display this past September and October at Blum & Poe in Los Angeles.

FuseProject collaborated with Swarovski to create a sustainable and accessible crystal lighting installation, which they named Amplify. While traditional chandeliers are made from numerous lights and crystals, the idea was to use one crystal and one low energy LED light to illuminate a faceted paper shade.

Crafter Jason Hull made these children’s nightlights out of discarded vintage cameras dating back to the 1950s and 60s.

UK DIYer Nachimer uses empty milk bottles to create an inexpensive, diffused LED lighting track.

Decorative cage bulbs by Trainspotters, Industrial Lighting & Salvage. These are Swiss-made and based on a 1930s design, with a 4,000 hour lifespan.

Another nostalgic bulb, a 1910 Squirrel Cage Light Bulb from Bulbrite.

Skeleton Lampshades by UK designer Donna Walker strips the fabric away from existing lampshades revealing the original craftsmanship of wire frames. Made from reclaimed lampbases.

Also from across the pond, Decode’s Wire Light is strung inside of a wire lantern made to create the illusion of an inner core comprised of twisted winding loops. Made to hold low-energy bulbs, it comes in white, black, powder-coated, copper and brass plated yellow.

Images: Plumen; MocoLoco; Matt Johnson; FuseProject; Jason Hull; Nachimer; Trainspotters; Bulbrite; Rhys Thorpe

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The Plumen 001 is a gorgeous compact florescent light bulb.

There are a handful of adverbs that swirl around the presence of compact florescent light bulbs (CFLs), efficient, effective, energy saving, eco friendly, functional and economical, But gorgeous rarely comes to mind – until now. The Plumen 001 light bulb is gorgeous, curvaceous, organic, and just plain pretty (in addition to all those pragmatic CFL adjectives). The Plumen 001 bulb also lasts eight times longer and uses 80% less energy than incandescent bulbs.

Product design company Hulger commissioned Samuel Wilkinson to design the aesthetic wonder. The bulb’s ornamental nature earns its name from plume (a large or especially ornamental feather), and in addition to my admiration, the “beautifully innovative” low energy bulb just won the 2011 Brit Insurance Design of the Year.

“It’s strange that the bulb, an object so synonymous with ideas, is almost entirely absent of imagination.”

Not anymore. The standard CFL bulb is a moral obligation. The Plumen 001 is a bulb to lust after, with a silhouette gorgeous enough to take center stage, naked.

The single drawback of the Plumen 001? It isn’t currently usable in the U.S.

I say it’s time to revolt.

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