Why hire a lighting designer

Lighting isn't something you can guess and get right. It takes an enormous amount of experience, dedication, curiosity, flexibility, research, collaboration and passion to get right. Anyone who does lighting in addition to their main job is not a lighting specialist. A lighting specialist's craft is light. Think about that. If anyone is to 'design' light for your house, they must take the time and care required to figure out the very best solutions for each space, knowing that a single variable can - and should - change everything. A lighting specialist doesn't take a single light fitting or position for granted, and the results speak for themselves. You can tell when a lighting expert has lit a space. Each light has a harmonious relationship to the rest of the room, a purpose - they've not just slung a bunch of downlights in a thoughtless grid on the ceiling or ordered the wrong decorative lights, making a mess of things. Get it right with someone who knows what's right when it comes to light.

You might think hiring a lighting designer is an indulgence or a luxury but it's quite the opposite. It's one of the lowest priced added-value cost when redoing your home. £50 (per hour, including VAT) to get expert lighting advice is a drop in the bucket compared to what other things cost when building a house. Besides, you won't need much time to make a big impact. Isn't a few hours of professional lighting guidance worth years of good lighting results? The price is cheaper than most interior designers, architects and electricians, who may tell you not to worry about your lighting, that they can 'do' it - yet they not dedicated lighting specialists and the difference can be day and night. If their business card doesn't read 'lighting designer', they are not lighting designers. Just because someone can cook a dinner doesn't make them a chef. You may end up paying more money for someone else to do your lighting design who isn't as qualified. Banana's, I know. 

Even a couple of hours (£100) can make a world of difference. Definitely a smart move, not an indulgent choice. Get in touch for an estimate, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

If you're working on a home project, you have a LOT of things to consider, probably more than you could have ever imagined. And everything is 'very important' and 'very expensive' and 'very urgent'. On top of everything else, you need to think about your lighting. One minute you're busy with foundations, windows and doors and then your builder says, the electrician will be here to fit first fix in a few weeks - where do you want your lighting and how do you want it controlled? Huh? What? Wait! Isn't lighting IMPORTANT?! (yes, it is). A house can have hundreds of light fittings. There are very few things that require a long, exhausting list of micro-decisions such as lighting. Your walls are there, your doors over there, windows may budge a bit but lights can go just about any and everywhere! Get it wrong, and you may end up with bad shadows, glare, lights in the wrong places and/or the wrong products ordered, which costs a lot of money and slows everything down but get it right and it's magic - an oasis of joy in the hectic mayhem. Choosing lights and locations for each room gets overwhelming pretty fast - if you're not a lighting expert who's lit hundreds of houses. Now imagine that you have someone to rely on to help you with all those many lighting decisions. Someone who asks you the right questions. Listens to you. Makes sure you don't miss anything. Helps you realise the vision for your home, through the language of light. Someone who can speak to the building team, translate lighting jargon, breakdown decisions into manageable bite-sized bits and treat you really well in the process. Someone you can trust who knows what they're talking about when it comes to light who isn't interested in making a sale. Ah, yes please. 

When you hire a lighting designer, you'll get a grip on how much lighting you actually need, and what that lighting will be. This invaluable information will enable you to form a realistic budget for your lighting. A discussion with a residential lighting designer (especially with Autumn Morrison, who loves interior design and lighting) explores what types of lights you like, where they might be located and what your style is. Your style is important because it impacts the light fitting selection. The light fitting selection then impacts the lighting layout, size of the lights and quantities. This 'fitting suggestion and selection' exercise with a lighting specialist (who knows your project inside and out and now understands your style) applies to wall lights, step lights, uplights, spot lights, recessed downlights, pendants, chandeliers, table lamps, floor lamps and outdoor lighting. Your lighting designer will help you put together a cohesive, realistic lighting plan, with real-life cost implications. Without a plan, you're guessing in the dark, literally.

The biggest way you can avoid lighting mistakes is to hire a lighting expert. Don't mess around here, honestly. Realistically, you're only going to 'do' your lighting once but you're going to live with your lighting decisions for years, possibly decades, to come. Hire someone who has 'done' lighting thousands of times, and already made all the mistakes you want to avoid - to get the one time you need it right. And don't rely on someone who knows a bit about lighting or who does the same lighting on every project, like boring grid of downlights on a ceiling - they aren't adapting the lighting to the space. Hire someone who knows a heck of a lot about lighting with decades worth of research, dedication and a commitment to lighting excellence - like Autumn Morrison, residential lighting designer with nearly three decades of experience learning about lights, listening to homeowners and working on lighting projects for homes. You may only need a little bit of lighting help, but that certainly doesn't mean you should hire someone who only knows a little bit about lighting. Make your lighting count, it's going to be with you for a very long time. Hire a lighting expert.

Collaboration is key. Whenever I design the lighting for a house, I always say, 'I can't light this house without you', and that's true. Of course I could light it MY way, but that's not my job. My job is to light your house YOUR way. A good designer will listen, ask relevant questions, bounce ideas around, pay attention to feedback, respect your concerns, offer useful advice and adapt the lighting design to suit your needs. If I've done my job right, I've used my knowledge to bring your vision to life.

When people embark on a house project, one thing I see over and over again is the stress around spiralling costs. No one likes a nasty surprise when it comes to costs. One of the pillars of my business is empowering my clients. When people control their costs, they're more at ease, more relaxed, and typically make better decisions - so it's a win win, really. Cause when my clients make good decisions, the results are stunning. If they feel stressed or fearful, the lighting suffers - not from lack of money, but from a lack of confidence. Controlling costs is directly related to confidence. Keeping my clients in control of their lighting design costs is important and pretty simple: My clients decide how much time they want to spend. I listen to the brief, find the smallest amount of time required to make the biggest impact and recommend a reasonable block of time. I do not begin until we are both in agreement about how much time I should spend on their project. If I go over our agreed time (happens quite a bit, I tend to get into the zone and don't want to stop when I'm onto a solution) I don't charge for time that hasn't been authorised by my client. I will never surprised you with a surprise bill, I promise. No minimums. You'll never find yourself in a situation where you have to spend more than you want to spend. You can stop whenever you choose. Stop-start / Pay-as-you-go lighting design. You are in control of your lighting design costs.

Autumn's Always Available. Okay, so I don't mean ring me on Christmas day or 5am on a Sunday, but basically, I'm available 24/7 once we agree to work together. I understand that you may have had a very busy day and evening time or the weekend is your best time to reply to lighting suggestions or alert me to a last minute change (happens all the time). I'll always get back to you as soon as I can, I'll never leave you guessing or waiting - I hate that myself. I appreciate how important it is when you need to find stuff out and I'll be honest about what you can expect from me and when. I am always there for you - you have my personal phone number, and my word. If I miss your call or message (which gets rarer as we continue to work together, forming a symbiosis knowingness about each other's schedules and adapting communications accordingly) - you can count on me coming back to you in a reasonable amount of time. I will not leave you hanging. You will not have to chase me. You can count on me. I know how exhausting chasing people is, and that's probably one of the unspoken reasons I get so many 5 star ratings. Respect goes a long way - 24/7.