Lighting Design

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Singapore 15^th August 2011

My blogs are all directly or indirectly related to my world of lighting and lighting design, but I do not always blog directly about the
process of actually designing…the creative component of our profession. I am blessed with a great team, but when it comes to the actual creative process I can see that there is a level insecurity, a lack of confidence to express the creative thoughts they actually have. Feeling confident about designing is a matter of experience, but also a matter of inspiration. I need to make sure there is no “fear” in expressing creative thoughts, no matter how outrageous the ideas may be.

Many designers limit their expression of creativity by putting up barriers and all kind of negative thoughts basically torpedoing the
design process. Too expensive, too difficult to maintain, too difficult to install or realise and so on. The core of designing is really not to feel limited at all. But at the base of the creative process there needs to be a design brief, an assessment of the project, its architectural opportunities, lighting effects opportunities and so on. It all goes into a mix (your brain) and out comes that magic moment of creation, that idea, that concept that somehow will materialise into a conceptual story that will be the lighting design.

The whole process needs a freedom of operation first before it be brought back to earth into a feasible and realistic lighting concept. But then what is realistic or feasible. Designers are there to push the envelope of possibilities, innovate and think out of the box. Today I spent some time with my team designing…finding that creative edge that will make the project stand out against run of the mill copy designs. Because really if you look around most “designers” copy and paste so to speak. Re-using concepts is certainly part of a creative process but it’s the creativity in reformatting some ideas in a new packaging or really using ideas in a totally new applications that will make the difference.

In Light Watch today just some out of the box ideas…taken from the website “spoonfeddesigns.com” these are some unusual lamp designs .