Lighting designers and builders often complain about each other…instead of partnering for the benefit of all. Custom residential lighting design – the way it is normally done – can be the enemy of a builder’s desire to complete the project on time and on budget. Great lighting requires more planning (adding cost and time), better […]
And…we’re back. The conversation around my first BS* + Beer guest appearance was so, er, illuminating that we found ourselves together just a few weeks later. This time the focus of the conversation was on lighting for the rest of us, or practical strategies we could apply on our own projects. Once again the hosts and guests […]
If you are one of my faithful readers that was sad in 2020 because I wrote only half my normal quantity of posts, I owe you an apology and an explanation. Of course, 2020 is a year that will go down in history as the year of “no apology needed.” I’m sorry I didn’t make […]
I recently wrapped up my year of writing for Technology Designer, an elegant quarterly publication that also featured my stories on baths, living in place, and linear lighting. I was given an open invitation to share my final thoughts for design professionals to finish the series. I returned to one of the most common questions […]
One of the perks of starting your own company is that you get to pick your job title. At some point I decided that “Chief Evangelist of Light” (CEL) would be my own. Evangelist is a term that can have positive and negative connotations in our society, and that makes CEL of risky title. I […]
“They are total know-it-alls.” I often ask homeowners, integrators, architects, and others if they have ever worked with a lighting designer. Most homeowners have not, and many do not know that we exist. The story is different for those in the trade. And in residential lighting design, from the responses I receive, there are know-it-alls […]
Whew. It’s been hard to find time to blog the past few months. I can blame that on the pandemic, but that is only partially true. I’ll blame it on Zoom instead. Our design team is spread across three time zones and six states, and we rely on remote communication tools like Zoom for continual […]
Simply put, we need natural light to be happy and healthy. We need lots of it in the mornings to wake up, plenty mid-day to keep us going, and a soft tapering at night to relax us towards sleep. The best source of natural light is…well…nature. But sunshine comes with a few drawbacks, such as […]
We have a certain number of formulas for illuminating a bedroom. We layer in lighting to deliver our five promises of light in these rooms just as we would anywhere else in the home. The solutions are different in a bedroom than in a kitchen because the function and form of each space is vastly […]
A career in lighting design can lead to some unusual experiences like living on a cruise ship in dry dock or spending the night in a shopping mall in Las Vegas. Every once in awhile, the experience opens your eyes. Just before the pandemic shut down our society, TIME opened THE MARCH at Chicago’s Dusable […]
I made plans to write on this topic months before the world changed underneath us. Back then, Living in Place was an emerging term that encapsulated a myriad of design ideas intended to help us live better lives without having to change locations. Comfort, accessibility, safety, and wellness all fit within the term. Age in […]