Practical advice on commercial lighting from LED retrofits to lighting design.

Do you feel like lighting is throwing a wrench in your project schedule and you’re scrambling to get a lighting package value engineered? And then, after you go through V.E., are you left with a package that doesn’t meet the original design intent?

There’s another way to do lighting.

Here’s a common dilemma: a company hires a general contractor to oversee a large-scale renovation or new construction buildout, or a series of projects. But when it comes to lighting, the company isn’t sure who should purchase the products.

I get asked all the time what the right color temperature and color rendering index (CRI) should be for various applications. Although there are rules of thumb that typically provide a positive outcome, color can be so subjective. With LED, your options have become almost limitless. Selecting the right color for your application can be pretty overwhelming. 

Color rendering index (CRI) goes hand in hand with color temperature when you’re trying to pick the right lighting for your application.

Our lighting designers answer countless questions when it comes to helping their customers understand light color and quality. Lighting Design Manager, Tori Cole, is here to help simplify some of the complexity around design, color quality, and LED lighting. Follow along as she answers some of the most common questions. 

This is the second post in our series on choosing the right color characteristics for your lighting project. Last time we addressed color temperature, but maybe the most critical issue — which has surfaced with the popularity of LED lighting — is color consistency. How do you know that the color of your lighting will be consistent from one product to another? Let’s dive in. 

When big shopping holidays like Black Friday and back-to-school shopping hit the retail world, it all too often means stores everywhere are scrambling to get the lighting right.

Lighting is one of those things that can be easily taken for granted. It’s sort of like cell phone service or drinking water – it’s not something most people pay attention to unless it’s off. 

Just like cellular networks and purified drinking water, details matter in lighting. Ensuring a cell signal isn’t spotty or that the total dissolved soluble content of water is palatable is a science. And it’s pretty easy to mess up.

With lighting, mistakes rarely go unnoticed. And even the less-noticed ones can have a trickle-down effect on sales.

The job of the lighting designer is to help you avoid such oversights, ensuring your lighting is sharp, consistent, and right for your brand.

In that spirit, here are the most common mistakes our team sees in retail lighting design:

If you're responsible for determining the right ambiance and light quality of your application, then you probably already know how important understanding Color Rendering Index (CRI) and Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) is. 

Here's the problem: CRI and CCT are anything but easy to understand.

Properly aimed lighting is one of the most important, yet easily overlooked aspects of great retail design. Done correctly, it will accent the merchandise you want to sell and lead your customers through your store. Check out this step-by-step guide on aiming to make your store attractive to customers.