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Get Creative: Living Rooms

Giving the Simple Gift of Light #9 You might think that crafting lighting designs for hundreds of homes would get boring after a few years. How many ways can you light a kitchen before it all starts to blend together? As it turns out, thankfully, the answer is “to infinity, and beyond!” Creativity is tough […]

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1THING: New Build Kitchens

A CAD recreation of a kitchen with a big island, cabinets, and a dining table behind the island. The cabinets over the counter are highlighted with lights directed downwards, which are emphasized by red dotted lines and arrows pointing to the lighted area

Center downlights on kitchen cabinet doors for better illumination inside the cabinets – and a better look. IF YOU CAN ONLY DO ONE THING TO IMPROVE THE LIGHTING IN YOUR NEW KITCHEN…put the recessed downlights in the right place. Getting great lighting in a home can be a little intimidating and overwhelming. Homeowners will often […]

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Showdown: Mouth vs Eyes

Two boxes labeled SURVIVE and THRIVE. The SURVIVE box on the left has a a single light switch with the text "Warning: Poor light may result in sleep disorders, hormone disruption and more" The THRIVE box on the right has six icons for the right tools, the right place, the right time, the right light, the right controls, the right shades.

Would you be concerned if you had to eat McDonald’s hamburgers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the rest of your life? Did you know you are probably doing the equivalent with your light? Without food, we die. We need food, regularly and sufficiently, to survive. Many of us now have the privilege of moving […]

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Human Centric Lighting is…

A photograph of a sandy beach along a lake shore. Someone drew the Light Can Help You logo in the sand.

I was recently asked to define the catchy term Human Centric Lighting, or HCL. We love lighting acronyms in the lighting world, so I came up with a few more than my previous post on this subject. Consider yourself warned. At its most essential, Human Centric Lighting is an attempt to undo our mistakes of […]

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Seeing is Believing

A photograph of the number 40 on a rock wall outside of a business.

I am excited to share a milestone with you but also wondering if the three plus years I’ve been blogging has been a waste of time. I started writing as a selfish endeavor to help me be a better lighting communicator. Maybe I should have just built better lighting instead. In a perfect world, I could simply […]

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Blinding me with Science

A graphic illustration of a checkboard with the Light Can Help You logo on one side and an illustrated doctor on the other. The checklist reads the following points: - An alarm clock woke you up today - you drink caffeinated beverages - you get sleepy at work - you have trouble sleeping at night - you struggle with weight issues - you fight addictions - you have blood pressure or heart concerns - you experience depression or anxiety

Whoops. I just spent a lot of time re-designing the “light and health” section of our design presentations to include updated sections on the latest research, examination of snake-oil-sounding miracle products, and in-depth explanations of our six strategies for incorporating the science into our design work. I was very proud of the finished product. “Pride […]

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More BS* + Beer

A screenshot of the More BS* + Beer YouTube video featuring headshots of the six co-hosts and guests that appear on the episode

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 […]

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The New Recruits

A 3x4 grid of videos from a Zoom video meeting

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 […]

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Layout Versus Design

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 […]

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Light Can Help You