{"id":48158,"date":"2016-07-11T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T10:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uncommongoods.pro\/?p=48158"},"modified":"2018-01-03T13:40:58","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T18:40:58","slug":"nightbulb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/2016\/nightbulb\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nightbulb: <\/br>An Instant Design Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"Nightbulb<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jamie Hoffman, UncommonGoods\u2019 Home Decor buyer, was strolling the booths at a trade show in New York when the chic good looks of\u00a0Liz Ross & David Westby<\/a>\u2019s Nightbulb<\/a>\u00a0lit up\u00a0her connoisseur\u2019s eye. \u201cWhen Liz pulled the Nightbulb prototype out of her bag,\u201d Jamie told us, \u201cI was immediately interested, and started to talk about an exclusive launch.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Nightbulb<\/a>At first glance, the Nightbulb looks like\u00a0an incandescent lightbulb. But its appearance is a trompe-l’\u0153il<\/em><\/a> (French for \u201cdeceives the eye\u201d). It\u2019s really a double-walled glass sculpture, lit by a battery-powered LED. The outside wall is a clear glass cylinder; the inside wall, of lightly frosted glass, is the familiar\u00a0lightbulb shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the visual illusion of looking like a lightbulb, but actually being a hand-blown piece of glass,\u201d says Jamie. \u201cWhen I learned more about the technique of making it, and that it was in fact just one piece of glass, I was really blown away (pun intended).\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nightbulb<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEach Nightbulb is made by hand, meticulously,\u201d explains Liz. \u201cEach glass piece is individually mouth blown and hand-finished. Each resin base is individually hand-cast by pouring resin into plastic molds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nightbulb<\/a><\/p>\n

Artisanal production is mixed with efficient lighting technology when a warm LED light is placed in the base. \u201cThe \u2018bulb\u2019 has no electricity in it. It\u2019s negative space. If you turn it upside down it could be a vase,\u201d says Liz. \u201cWe love that visual joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s also kind of funny is that Liz and David hadn\u2019t intended to create a light at all. They’d been working on a\u00a0design for something else entirely:\u00a0a\u00a0snow globe.\u00a0Making snow globes<\/a>\u00a0had been their main business since they\u00a0moved to Vermont from San Francisco, nine years ago.<\/p>\n

Artists-turned-professionals, the move had helped them revert to type. \u201cThe quiet brain time here has allowed us to be a lot more creative,\u201d Liz says. \u201cWe\u2019re surrounded by so much beauty. I get so much pleasure from the trees, the crazy animals, foxes, skunks. It\u2019s a solace to see things be born and grow.\u201d\"Snow<\/a><\/p>\n

Inspired by their new surroundings, the couple wanted to creatively\u00a0evoke that atmosphere and beauty, and hit upon the idea of making exquisite, high quality \u201csnow\u201d globes that didn\u2019t necessarily have fake snow in them. \u201cIn California, I\u2019d so missed the falling autumn leaves. Then we realized that as far as we knew, nobody had made a \u2018snow\u2019 globe with autumn leaves.\u201d\u00a0Nor had anyone made one with falling pink cherry petals<\/a>, or a cairn globe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise, with globes so beautifully poetic, that Liz and David have been successful. They\u2019ve made a number of custom globes for companies. One idea they\u2019d been working on was a globe that looked like it had a lightbulb inside, which could be given as an award to employees who had had a great idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought, \u2018What would fall around the lightbulb shape? Maybe gold glitter to make it look like it was lit up?\u201d Liz tells us. \u201cBut,\u201d even with all their experience, she says, \u201cwe couldn\u2019t figure out how to put the water in the light.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we thought… what it if it was just a light?\u201d \u201c[Ed. note: lightbulb moment\u201d joke avoided here.]\n

\"Nightbulb<\/a>

Sketches of the Nightbulb<\/a>-in-progress<\/p><\/div>\n

Following that unplanned detour\u00a0led\u00a0them to a brand-new design for both decorative and practical needs. The decorative part is obvious: simple and elegant, lovely and cool, it\u2019s an instant design classic. As for the practical part, Liz says, \u201cThe original idea was to use it in a baby\u2019s room in the middle of the night, when you\u2019re changing a diapers.\u201d But, she continues, \u201cThen we had a blackout in Vermont. We had a dozen of these laying around, and we put one in every room. It worked really well!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have one on my nightstand. I\u2019ve read the New York Times there, and it\u2019s enough light. We have one in the bathroom. We\u2019ve brought them out to the front porch in the summer. We\u2019ve used a row of them down the center of the dining room table, for dinner parties.\u201d\u00a0And of course, it’s\u00a0an ideal nightlight, which doesn\u2019t need an outlet.<\/p>\n

Blending comforting nostalgia with equally comforting energy responsibility, the Nightbulb combines the best of old-fashioned incandescent lightbulbs and portable\u00a0LED lamps. Like incandescents, the Nightbulb gives flattering, cozy glow; unlike them, it’s\u00a0highly energy efficient. And like plastic LED lanterns from dollar stores, it\u2019s cordless and highly portable. \u201cIt fits in your hand really nicely,\u201d Liz says. But unlike utilitarian lanterns, it\u2019s art.<\/p>\n

As UncommonGoods buyer Jamie says, \u201cIf you own one, there\u2019s no way people won\u2019t immediately pick it up and ask, ‘What\u2019s this?’\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Get<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Jamie Hoffman, UncommonGoods\u2019 Home Decor buyer, was strolling the booths at a trade show in New York…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":49047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[742],"tags":[2136,37,839,2042],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48158"}],"version-history":[{"count":73,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51235,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48158\/revisions\/51235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}