Top 5 Lighting Design Tips For Interior Designers

We’ve said this before, but we’ll say it again – lighting design can truly transform the interior of your space. By using contrast of shadows and light to provide ambience and adapt the mood of each room, good lighting is simply essential.

While natural light is always in vogue, artificial lighting can be used to reach corners, complement room size, furniture and colour palettes.

Put it this way, interiors go well beyond furniture and colours. Good lighting design must be in place to bring everything together.

Here, we explore our top five lighting designer tips for interior designers.

1.    Lighting must be functional

When thinking about the layout, furniture, and features within a space, consider what tasks may be undertaken and how lighting can support this. For example, plan to ensure your lighting provides sufficient visibility for reading. This could be achieved using a carefully placed spotlight, wall light, or table luminaire. And what about cooking, or watching TV? Planning ahead will help determine the right types of lighting for your interior.

2.    Layer your lighting

Taking a layered approach to your lighting with multiple sources across different levels can create the perfect ambiance. For homes especially, you can use interior lighting to uplift a room and make it appear larger in size. Try low hung pendants to achieve the illusion of height, or save as much space as possible with recessed spotlights.

For further information on layered lighting, take a look at our blog on the importance of interior design. Here, we discuss how ambient, task and accent lighting can enhance the interior of a home.

3.    Keep things (relatively) simple

Like keeping colour schemes and themes consistent is important with interior design, ensuring consistency with lighting design is the same. Using too many different styles, colour temperatures or plans can give visitors an uneasy feeling.

Lighter tones will help open up a room and give the appearance of a larger space, statement lighting or pops of colour will draw attention to a particular feature or object, and darker hues give off a sense of cosiness or luxury.

Whatever the feel you’re going for, keep a sense of consistency. But that’s not to say you can’t be bold!

4.    Choose lighting carefully

While the advancement in technology has made life much more convenient, certain products can increase energy costs and harm the environment too. Thankfully, most lighting is now LED, offering lower energy usage and reduced carbon footprint.

With far more advantages over traditional, incandescent luminaires, LEDs are certainly the favourable options when it comes to your choosing your lights.

If you’re interested in learning more about LEDs and why they’re now used everywhere in lighting design, take a look at our blog on the advancement of LED lights.

5.    Choose dimmers for flexibility

Installing dimmers gives you instant control over your lighting scheme. With the ability to increase and decrease the intensity of your lights, you can change the mood of the room to suit your feelings at any time.

For additional flexibility, each type of lighting within your scheme should have the ability to be controlled separately. Not only does this increase your options when it comes to arranging the interior, but creates a longer-lasting solution for both homes and businesses.

Eager to learn more on dimmable lighting solutions? Read our ultimate guide to dimmable LEDs. From getting started with dimmable lights, to the benefits, and resolving common issues, here we cover everything you need to know.

Consult with a lighting design specialist

To get the very best from your interior, consulting with a lighting design specialist is always recommended. For the expertise, knowledge on industry trends, and experience needed to ensure a superior lighting solution utilising the latest technology, get in touch with us at Hampshire Light today. We’d love to talk about your vision and how we could benefit your project.