CMYK bulb by
Dennis Parren
Milan 2013: designer Dennis Parren has developed a light bulb that casts coloured shadows.
The CMYK bulb by Dennis Parren combines a white main light source with coloured LEDs in red, green and blue to cast shadows in cyan, magenta and yellow.
The design is a commercial development of the one-off CMYK lamps that Parren developed as part of his graduation project at Design Academy Eindhoven in 2011.
“It is easier to produce and you find yourself more in [the] mainstream of lighting,” says Parren of the new design. “That makes it many times more accessible.” He expects the bulb to be priced around €95 when it appears in shops.
The prototype was showcased at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan this month, together with a shade Parren developed especially to complement the bulb.
The faceted Diamond shade is made of matt white polypropylene covered in tiny pin-pricks to scatter coloured dots of light onto surrounding surfaces.
“The shade derived from a previous project, the RGB Galaxy,” he says. “I chose this shape because the light sparkles through the little holes like a real diamond.”
Other lighting on show at Spazio Rossana Orlandi included a wind-up folding lamp by Nika Zupanc.
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