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The Work Zone

The Simple Gift of Light #10 There is a part of me that wants lighting design to be so complicated, technical, and artistic that no one else tries it, leaving all of the opportunities to me. In this fantasy world- the one where lighting is too complex for ordinary citizens to grasp- I get to […]

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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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Seven Saintly Solutions

The Light Can Help You Logo, which is a light bulb with a smile, with a halo. Title of the presentation: Seven Saintly Solutions of Lighting Layout - A Presentation by Light Can Help You with DMF Lighting

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 […]

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Humble Know-it-alls

An illustration of a pedestal with a microphone on top of it on the left and in the center is a human sized drawing dummy with the Light Can Help You light bulb logo on it's chest

“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 […]

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Time Zooms By

Three people's video feeds in a Zoom meeting on a computer screen

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 […]

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The Future of Shades?

A close up on strange, futuristic window shades on a window

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 […]

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Bedrooms: Beyond Sleeping

An illustration of a bedroom with lighting dos on the left and lighting donts on the right.

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 […]

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Time Marches On

The cover of TIME magazine with Martin Luther King, Jr. on the cover with the words "His Legacy: The Fight for Equality"

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 […]

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Light Can Help You