So, for an owner or a lighting designer, what processes and matters should be paid attention to in lighting design?
Here, Seeposh summarized his years of experience in lighting design as follows, hoping to be helpful to the owners who are engaged in lighting design industry or need to do lighting design.
1、 Establish contacts and understand customer needs
In this link, the customer and the supplier initially establish contact (provided that the business relationship has been basically established). The direct owner or client (such as the decoration company with insufficient lighting design ability) shall disclose to the lighting designer or lighting design company, and state their needs and intentions to the lighting designer. As a lighting designer or company, you need to know the following information in this link:
1. Budget for lighting design. You can't persuade a shopkeeper who runs a street shop to use a set of chandeliers in a high-end mall! Only by fully understanding the client's project budget, can the lighting designer make a more reasonable, rather than a more excellent design scheme.
2. Scope of lighting design. Of course, the scope mentioned here includes not only the scope of space, but also the spatial functions and possible problems of the entire lighting design. For example, sometimes the exterior lighting of a hotel will become part of the nightscape lighting of a city. Whether the local government has relevant requirements needs to be consulted.
3. Delivery period (design period). The designer should fully consider the delivery date of the project and make reasonable planning and preparation for the design cycle and construction cycle of the scheme, so as to better meet the needs of the client and avoid reducing the probability of default. Sometimes, the entrusting party does not understand the lighting design work, and the budgeted time is not enough to complete the whole lighting design and construction process. This requires the lighting designer to explain the situation to the client and determine the delivery date separately, instead of reluctantly accepting orders. Once the time is tight, the early design and late construction will be "hasty" and even delayed, which is extremely unfavorable to the client and the design company.
4. Customer requirements. The lighting designer should understand the client's lighting design needs, such as design creativity and functional needs, and make a record of these contents. If the client puts forward some special requirements that cannot be realized, the designer can clearly put forward the operational impossibility, or make a statement to the client after discussing with team colleagues.
2、 Lighting space analysis
The last step is mainly for the entrusting party (person). This link mainly talks about the understanding of lighting designers on lighting projects. For example, designers need to understand and investigate some cultural features and backgrounds related to the project, as well as the preferences and group characteristics of users or customers.
1. Learn as much as possible about the lighting space, and take more photos of the whole and details of the building. It would be better if we could get documents such as structural drawings and bearing analysis data of buildings. At the same time, lighting designers need to know the materials, colors, reflectance and other information used in the building structure, especially the surface layer, so as to reserve them for use in the scheme. It is particularly emphasized here that the lighting designer in charge of the project must go to the project site.
2. Examine the environmental relationship inside and outside the lighting space during the day and at night (especially for projects involving outdoor lighting). The relationship between the project and the environment is completely different during the day and night. The lighting designer needs to fully understand the role of daylight on the lighting space to better use natural light for lighting and save energy. As for the environmental relationship at night, it seems more important. Whether the glare and color temperature of surrounding lighting interfere with the project needs to be investigated.
3. Analysis of materials and placement of furniture and decorative items. For indoor lighting design, these information are very important, including the material, shape, size, color, reflectance, etc. of lamps, which have an impact on the illuminance and distribution of lamps during lighting design.
4. Audience analysis. What we mentioned above is the analysis required by the client or the owner. Here we are talking about the audience, especially for commercial space, lighting designers must understand the age, preferences, cultural quality, living habits, etc. of the customer group.
3、 Collect and sort out relevant data
This step of work, in fact, is a lighting designer's daily work and spare time need to continue. It is necessary to collect and analyze similar lighting design projects and use feedback on the market. At the same time, as a lighting designer, you may also need to master more information about the lighting industry, as well as some new design techniques and creativity, to keep your mind updated and active.
On the other hand, our communication with the client cannot be completed at one time, nor can all the information required by the lighting designer be obtained at one time. This requires us to constantly communicate with the client, guide them to understand and accept the scheme, and repair and optimize it as needed.
It should be noted that when we are doing lighting design projects, we should try our best to understand some requirements of local policies and regulations in terms of architecture, lighting, fire protection, etc., and never touch the red line.
4、 Establishment of design creativity
This is a very important stage. With the support of the above steps, the designer team carries out overall thinking and creativity, puts forward the design concept and clarifies the design purpose. Communicate with the client for many times, determine the design scheme and creativity, draw sketches, computer 3D demonstration or establish a model of a certain scale.
5、 Selection of lamps
This is the basis for the realization of lighting design effects, and it is also a key step. The style, type and shape of lamps, illuminance and color temperature of light source have a great influence on the style and effect of the whole lighting design. The lighting designer needs to decide whether to choose a lantern (pendant lamp, wall lamp, ceiling lamp) or a downlight, spotlight, or lamp band according to the information investigated in the previous steps, such as the building structure, style, floor height, bearing, application scenario, owner's preference, etc.
6、 Installation and commissioning
This step is a real step to show the whole lighting effect. The installation height of lamps, the length of dropped wires, open or concealed installation, etc. have a huge impact on the lighting effect. Moreover, the final lighting effect is often affected by many factors, such as installation height, number and wattage of light sources, shading angle, floor and wall color, home material and color.
Therefore, we believe that no matter whether the lighting designer has rich work experience or not, testing and debugging are necessary steps. Changing the light source with different parameters and adjusting the installation height and angle of lamps should be common work on the lighting construction site.
7、 After sales service
Like Seeposh Design, it provides a complete set of lighting design services from scheme formulation, lamp supply to installation and construction. Therefore, after-sales service is also essential.
The above is the complete process that lighting design will probably experience. Relevant practitioners or owners may wish to refer to it. For lighting design practitioners, they can better understand the steps of the whole operation process; For owners, they can learn how to better cooperate with lighting designers or lighting design companies to make design schemes and actual effects that meet their needs.
If you have any questions about the lighting design of commercial space , please consult with seeposh.
