Lighting professionals are always looking for ways to improve their skills, but it can be hard to know where to start. Fortunately, Andy Bull, director of design for Lighting Audio Video Projects, and David Warfel, founding designer of Light Can Help You, shared their top tools of the trade during their highly informative “Do More with Lighting and Expand Your Offerings: Lighting Experts Reveal All” educational session on Friday morning.
“If I had this presentation 11 years ago, it probably would have saved me many, many years of trying to work out what to do and from many mistakes,” Bull admitted. The duo broke down the tools into three categories, Inspiration and Education, Drawing and Design, and Numbers and Fixtures.
Tools for Inspiration and Education included Mood and Pinterest boards to help clients visualize the possibilities, as well as provide easy organization and access for client conversations. The IES Ready Reference App is a handy tool for quick lookup of recommended light levels. Blogs and podcasts cited as valuable tools included the CEDIA podcast (which hosts Bull and Warfel’s podcasts on lighting design), “The Language of Light” blog, and websites from Mariana Figueiro, Ph.D. and Dr. Shelley James that are packed with information and research on light and well-being.
On the Drawing and Design front, recommended software included Adobe Photoshop, the Sketchbook app — particularly powerful when coupled with an iPad and Apple Pencil — Bluebeam Revu, and the Lutron Luxury Experience app, which lets lighting professionals demonstrate color technologies, warm dimming, layered lighting, and more.
To help lighting professionals with Numbers and Fixtures, Bull and Warfel recommended DIALux and RELUX along with AGi32, plus various light meters and light meter apps.
The first top recommended tool? “Open-ended questions,” Warfel revealed. “You’re trying to get some information from the client that will help you create a solution for them. Open-ended questions are the key to sales or getting the design right and getting the client convinced that yes, this is the right design — and they should pay for it. Ask questions like, ‘What do you want to put up on your walls?’ or ‘How do you spend your time at home?’ up front, and you’ll find out what’s most important to them.”
“Let them talk!” added Bull, unveiling the second top tool for lighting professionals. “The more they talk, the easier it is. It’s just as important to listen instead of being too eager to jump right in. Let them talk, keep them talking. Open-ended questions are how to do it.”
Visit https://bit.ly/4cYx5ES to access a downloadable PDF of Bull and Warfel’s curated list of lighting resources, complete with links to all the tools, software, and websites discussed in their presentation.
