Sometimes clichés are really useful. Even though they may be tired and overused, at least everyone knows what you mean. For example, how many times have you heard people say “I was working on a really hard problem, and then I suddenly got it. It was alike a light bulb turning on over my head.” And in countless PowerPoint presentations and brochures, when the graphic designer wants to capture that “Eureka” moment or tell you that something is creative or inspired, in goes a picture of a light bulb. An image search of Google for the keywords “light bulb idea” yields more than 19 million results.
The glowing glass globe with the filament inside is a universal symbol for great ideas, and also conjures up memories of Thomas Alva Edison persistently trying one alternative after another until he hits the right combination of glass, gas and metal that drives out the darkness and changes the way the whole world lives and works.
One small problem is looming on the horizon. Although the light bulb has remained virtually unchanged for decades, our children won’t even recognize the classic inspiration light bulb. It started with the screw-in fluorescent squiggle bulb, and now LEDs are the next thing. With environmental legislation rolling through the EU and the rest of the world, the classic light bulb in just a few years will disappear from store shelves and lamp sockets everywhere.
So what will be the new symbol for inspiration? The LED? Somehow an LED turning on seems better suited to the power button of a laptop than representing maximum creativity. And the cool fluorescent glow stick doesn’t do it either. I don’t know the answer, do you have an inspirations?
Sometimes clichés are really useful. Even though they may be tired and overused, at least everyone knows what you mean. For example, how many times have you heard people say “I was working on a really hard problem, and then I suddenly got it. It was alike a light bulb turning on over my head.” And in countless PowerPoint presentations and brochures, when the graphic designer wants to capture that “Eureka” moment or tell you that something is creative or inspired, in goes a picture of a light bulb. An image search of Google for the keywords “light bulb idea” yields millions of results.
The glowing glass globe with a filament inside is a universal symbol for great ideas, and also conjures up memories of Thomas Alva Edison persistently trying one alternative after another until he hit the right combination of glass, gas and metal that drove out the darkness and changed the way the whole world lives and works.
One small problem is looming on the horizon. Although the light bulb has remained virtually unchanged for decades, our children won’t even recognize the classic inspiration light bulb. It started with the screw-in fluorescent squiggle bulb, and now LEDs are the next thing. With environmental legislation rolling through the EU and the rest of the world, the classic light bulb in just a few years will disappear from store shelves and lamp sockets everywhere.
So what will be the new symbol for inspiration? The LED? Somehow an LED turning on seems better suited to the power button of a laptop than representing maximum creativity. And the cool fluorescent glow stick doesn’t do it either. I don’t know the answer, do you have any ideas?
Tagged as:
Cliches,
Ideas,
Inspiration
