What Makes for a Successful Lighting Design?

Optimize Your Mood and Space with Lighting that Works for You

Usually, the first things people associate with lighting design are luxury fixtures. However, no lighting designer should let you go straight to fixture selection when building or remodeling your home. Instead, there should be a standardized process to identify your needs and then work with you to design the ideal system for your New Orleans, LA, home that includes the fixtures, controls, and layout that best fit your esthetics and family needs.

SEE MORE: Control Your Moods and Create an Ambience with Lighting Controls

Ascertaining Your Lighting Design Needs

It’s the same whether you’re setting up a home network, lighting design, or home theater—it all starts with figuring out your needs. Not only do you need to focus on the basic task requirements—getting the proper illumination and avoiding glare—but on the comprehensive benefits of a professional design. A successful lighting design should also consider the mood of the space, features that need to be highlighted, managing daylight, and even which areas light should obscure. This stage will determine your preferences as well when it comes to lighting methods. How bright do you want the light to be? Will it be surface mounted vs. recessed, direct or indirect? A lot of this will come down to accomplishing the goals outlined above, but in some cases, it comes down to personal preferences as well.

The Right Tools for the Job

When you’re finished laying out the requirements for your lighting design, it's time for everyone's favorite step—choosing your lights. Resist the urge to focus on external aesthetics just yet; instead, your professional will focus on your light source. Each fixture needs to be analyzed to determine its output, efficacy, color characteristics, control system compatibility, and surface brightness. Once you choose the LED bulbs that fit those characteristics, you'll have some flexibility in the appearance, finish and size of your fixtures to match your décor. Not all fixtures have the same durability, so it is also important to consider which will do well outdoors or in high-moisture environments like bathrooms and saunas.

Designing the Perfect Coverage

Each fixture you've chosen now needs its ideal location in your home. Relying on a professional is vital since many math formulas are involved in calculating the perfect illumination for a space. These formulas consider lumens, the number of lamps, light loss factors, mounting locations, and surface factors (how light reflects off different surfaces). Having these thorough calculations done from the start ensures that each fixture is used to its ultimate potential and that all your lighting goals are met. In addition, every lighting design should show where fixtures go, how many to use, their illuminance, and direction.

Having Seamless Control of Lights

Even the best lighting design can fail if it is not versatile, allowing for adaptability and depth. As you integrate task, ambient, and accent lighting, you need a control system that lets you engage all of them simultaneously or independently. Via elegant switches, touchpads, or even voice control, it should be easy to turn lights on and off, and adjust their intensity and color as needed. Even automated controls should be a standard feature of your lighting design. For example, natural light is optimized with daylight sensors that dim or turn off fixtures when sunlight is available. Save energy with occupancy sensors that automatically turn off lights in unoccupied rooms.

We specialize in tailor-made lighting design and control solutions that revitalize your space and mood. Reach out to our team of lighting experts to get started on your next project or learn more about our services. Call us, fill out our contact form or chat with us below to get started.