How Do You Design Lighting?

Module: Module 1 - Principles of Lighting

Activity: Overview

Introduction

A customer is not really concerned about lamps; what he is buying is lighting. Lamps, ballasts and fixtures are only vehicles to provide lighting. When a place is well-lit--be it a shopping mall, an office building or a monument--what catches your attention is the object or space that is illuminated. The lamps and fixtures should be (generally) as unobtrusive as possible.

Designing a lighting system

A lighting designer is trying to create an effect, a feeling. He sculpts with light. He brings out form and shape through light and shadow. He creates ambiance and mood.

There are two aspects to lighting design: the engineering aspect which involves appropriate footcandles and correct fixture spacing and all that, and the aesthetic aspect which involves the mood and feeling created by the lighting.

As lamp salespersons your ability to service the needs of the customer will be enhanced if you have an understanding of both these aspects lighting design and lighting applications. This course touches only on the most rudimentary aspects of lighting.

What's in this course?

After this course you will (hopefully) look at lighting through new eyes. When you walk into an establishment not only will your roving eye be taking in what lamps and what fixtures are being used, you will also become more sensitive to the perspective of the lighting designer. You will see the issues and forces he had to contend with and you will have an awareness of how successful he has been.

You will begin to look at lighting as a solution to the problem. What is the problem? The problem is to provide adequate illumination for the task or function while satisfying aesthetic needs and keeping costs within assigned limits.

In order to solve this problem, the lighting designer has to choose lamps and fixtures and to place them appropriately in the space.

There are criteria and considerations that are different for different applications. For example, if he were lighting a manufacturing area you would go about it differently than if you were lighting a large department store. Again, the type of lighting you pick for a store depends on the image that the store is trying to portray. A high-end store might use a lot of halogen spotlights and warm indirect lighting. A cheap discount store may use bare lamp cool white fluorescent fixtures not merely because that is the cheapest lamp-fixture combination but also because the customer walking in senses that the establishment is not "wasting" money on frills and extravagance.