Edison’s Famous Quote in 8,000 Map Pins


“None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” – Thomas Edison

Using 8,000 colored and black map pins, designer and artist Dominique Falla adapted and then recreated one of Thomas Edison’s famous quotes in this beautiful typographical project. On top, she used colorful map pins to demonstrate “inspiration” and on the bottom she used all black pins to show the “boring drudgery” or hard work we must all go through that make up the 99%.

The whole piece, called Ideas are 1% Inspiration … 99% Perspiration, took Falla about a week to complete with part of the time dedicated to driving from store to store to pick up all the map pins she could find. After gathering them up, Falla said that she first typeset the words on the computer to make sure they all fit. “I printed the sheets out and tiled them together, then taped it to the foam core and pierced around the edge of each letter with a pin to make a hole,” she told us. “When I had completed all of the letters, I removed the paper and then stuck pins in all of the holes and after that, filling in the blank areas with the remaining pins was easy.”











Love her use of negative space.

Dominique Falla’s website