8 minute read
Light Can Help Us
Transforming Client Reactions Through Language
BY: DAVID K. WARFEL
Have you ever had a client that, despite your best advice, chose not to spend enough money to get really good lighting in their home or workplace? Have you ever had a client eliminate ambient light layers in their kitchen or cut down the accent lighting in a conference room? The problem may not be the client or your design. The problem may be the words you use.
In a few weeks, I will be guest-lecturing in several lighting classes at University of Colorado in Boulder. Beforehand, each student will be reading about Richard Kelly’s “lightplay” from Jason Livingston’s Designing with Light: The Art, Science, and Practice of Architectural Lighting Design, and it will be my task to contextualize the basic functions of lighting design and, I hope, provide practical advice they can use in their coursework and careers. At first glance this can seem like a tall order, to stand in the shadow of lighting legends like Kelly, to find something useful to say in seventy-five minutes or less.
Many of us in the lighting design profession have heard of Kelly’s focal glow, ambient luminescence, and play of brilliants. I was taught that the three layers of light required for good lighting were a variation of these, labeled task, ambient, and accent lighting. For a decade or two, I carried these layers from client to client, presenting them as a kind of holy grail, sacred and important. Six or seven years ago, I came to an uncomfortable yet surprisingly energizing conclusion: Our clients do not care about task, ambient, and accent. Our clients do not understand what play of brilliants or ambient luminescence mean.
And that should be okay.
Lighting designers need a kind of shorthand to communicate with each other – call it a secret professional language, so that we can efficiently transfer knowledge, communicate with teams, and get the job done. There is nothing wrong with subscribing to Richard Kelly’s language or the task, ambient, accent derivatives, so long as we recognize that these words do little to communicate the absolute necessity and value of light to an ordinary citizen like our client.
Here is what I will say to the classes at UC Boulder: Learn and use what Jason Livingston and Richard Kelly provide to build better lighting designs. And then I will encourage them to develop their own language of light for use with clients.
In this series of articles for designing lighting (dl), I will share my own language of light built around the core belief that light can help us live our best lives. There is nothing sacred about my terminology, nothing absolute. I see no reason to require students to learn my terminology or to publish my language in our society’s recommended practices. In fact, even publishing them here gives me pause, because a language of light is a living, evolving entity that must change and grow as the user does. Just as our technical vocabulary has expanded to include LED, COB, grazing, tape, circadian, and more, our design vocabulary needs to expand to include what we have learned about light. Perhaps more importantly, our design vocabulary needs to expand to include what we know about people.
The language of light that works for me avoids beautiful phrases like “play of brilliants” and steers clear of vague terms like “ambient”. Instead, I focus on why we need light and what kinds of light we need. And, I continually examine and revise this second language of light in an ongoing quest for more succinct, clear communication with clients who do not speak light. I share this language of light with you not in the desire to remake the world of lighting in my image, but rather to encourage you to remake the way you talk about light.
But first, why should you care? Why should any lighting designer spend time thinking about this? Why should we consider dropping task, ambient, and accent from our presentations and communications? There are two primary reasons we need a second language of light to use in our profession: because we serve ordinary citizens, and because lighting costs money.
Ordinary citizens do not understand us when we talk about light. Many will nod their heads and make understanding noises, even compliment us after a presentation: “This was a good presentation” or “This sounds like really good lighting.” And then that same client will turn around and slash the lighting budget.
When this happens, we have failed to communicate the true value of light. We have failed to speak in ways that ordinary citizens can grasp the critical importance of good lighting. And if they cannot understand the value and importance of light, they would be unwise to spend money on lighting. This is not their failing. It is ours. And that should be good news, because it means we can change it.
Over the past few years I have completely changed the way I talk about light with my clients, and it has transformed the results. It all begins with the primary purpose of light in our lives. Light is the first gift of the universe and is here to help us live our best lives.
Underneath the idea that light is a gift is what I have come to call the six promises of light. First, light can help us see what we are doing so we can do it better. Second, light can help us know where we are and who is with us so we can know more. Light can help us feel more alert in the morning and more relaxed in the evening, or simply feel better. Light can help us focus clearly on what is important to us, whether that be a task at hand or the face of a loved one. Light can help us adapt to change more easily, from moods and weather to age and activity. And finally, light can help tell our stories, revealing what is important to us and sharing those values with others by highlighting an architectural detail or creating a welcoming atmosphere.
Until recently, I used these six promises as the core of communication with clients, and it worked well enough that I will share more details of each in the coming months. As I continually seek to reach more clients, I have begun to reexamine my terminology and build it into something even more clear. Today, I describe the promises of light with the addition of what kind of light is needed in each case:
1. Light for our hands can help us see what we are doing so we can do it better.
2. Light for faces and places can help us know where we are and who is with us.
4. Light for our minds can help us focus clearly on what is important to us.
5. Light for our lives can help us adapt to changes more easily.
6. Light for our values can help us remember what is important and share it with others.
If you look at the list above you may notice that task, ambient, accent, play of brilliants, sconces, indirect, CCT, CRI, TM-30, and all the other “first language of light” terms are missing. I have found that couching my presentations in this way has all but eliminated clients who respond, “Let’s cut the accent lighting, I can do without that.” Few will say, “Let’s cut the light for our bodies, we don’t want to feel good.” In both cases, it may be the same light.
When I wrap up this series, I will go one step further and share an even simpler language of light I have just begun to develop and share. It is a new approach to layers of light that also strives for simplicity and clarity for ordinary clients, a language and organizing philosophy that demonstrates both the value and type of lighting needed in typical spaces. I am replacing task, ambient, and accent with Comfort Zone, Glare Zone, Work Zone, and Safety Zone. When used in the correct zone, the six promises of light can deliver light that helps us live our best lives.
Is that not what we are all about? Helping others with light?
