Almost three years ago to the day, I was at the Designersblock exhibition in London's East End covering the Design Festival for Core when I clocked Nicholas Roope navigating his way through the crowded room with a step ladder to casually install a last minute prototype of the very first Plumen Bulb. After several more prototypes and iterations, it's great to see Hulger's Plumen Light Bulb launch today!
At first take, this might seem like a radical departure from the retro inspired mobile and skype handsets Hulger launched in 2005, but the Plumen bulb embodies the same playful subversive spirit, it's just a little more grown up and serious in nature.
The handsets were never seen as a long term proposition, they knew the novelty factor alone meant it had a life span but saw great potential in applying this approach to other product categories. The concept of using Hulger as platform was always a notion, even back in 2006 when they ran a workshop at St Martins for the final year Industrial Design students called Hulgerisation. Students were challenged to go beyond the social, economical and technological drivers that push product development and ask how can a product not only be made more useable, but also more enjoyable.
