Even before Thomas Edison’s invention of the electric light in 1879, interior designers recognised the artistic potential of home lighting. Five centuries ago, the early Greeks decorated clay pots containing perfumed oils or animal fats with lighted wicks inside, which they used for domestic lighting. Later the Romans experimented with bronze to add aesthetic value to their functional lamps and since then almost every culture and society has yielded examples of decorative lighting.
Thomas Edison’s incandescent bulb had no sooner been introduced than the Tiffany Studios began producing stained glass shades which influenced lighting design so powerfully. Designer lighting has been big business ever since.
New designs in lighting appear every year and designers are constantly pushing new boundaries with their innovative styles and experimental materials. Young designers like Jake Phipps took designer lighting to new levels of funky fun when he used woollen felt around an anodised aluminium frame to produce a range of bowler hat designs which look strikingly authentic. Another stylish idea in designer lighting is ‘Spectrum’ which uses suspended acrylic bars in five different colours. Funkier still is a laser cut wooden bulb by Lighting Styles – a wholly new take on Edison’s invention. Ingo Maurer’s tribute to the great inventor found its way into the Museum of Modern Art and this lit the runway to his international success.
Designer lighting is not just about illuminating spaces. It is about fully understanding technology and the artistic and aesthetic qualities of lighting designs. Good lighting should help us to make the absolute best of the space we want to illuminate and a good designer understands that perfectly.