8 minute read
Being Sold to Instead of Designed For?
from Aug 2025
A Deep Dive Into the New IALD Bylaws
By David Burya
Cover Photo: Private Residence, Manhattan, 2017. The custom flexible lighting system was designed to light the space and art while limiting the reflected light on the glass to preserve the view at night. The lighting assembly was carefully coordinated with the lighting representative, lighting manufacturer, and furnished through many shop drawings coordinated by the distributor. Photo Credit: Tirschwell Lighting Design.
Lighting design and lighting distribution are vastly different. Both are essential to visualizing and realizing a successful project, and each adds a critical value.
However, when lighting designers take on product sales, complexities arise.
Interior designers are often referenced as a comparison, but the products they furnish are not as entangled in the building’s infrastructure as architectural lighting. Lighting is deeply integrated, requiring coordination across wiring, controls, construction, and multiple trades. Interior designers, strictly considering products they may furnish to the project, often coordinate appointments and finish elements which tend to have a lesser degree of entanglement in MEP, HVAC, structural, or other teams. This makes the interior designer model substantially different.
In nearly 27 years of lighting design in New York City, before adding sales as a component, I can recall only five to ten times when I needed to request order expedition help from reps or manufacturers. In each case, we worked together with the architect, GC, and EC to address the issue as a team and support the client.
Once distribution enters the equation, the dynamics shift.
General contractors and electrical contractors often become less engaged, particularly under “furnished by owner” arrangements. If they are not being compensated, their incentive to stay involved diminishes, and that burden is largely transferred to the design team.
The expectation becomes that the design and distribution company will deliver fixtures outside of standard channels, arriving as if from Amazon. Additionally, traditional electrical distributors also handle and negotiate many things related to the project.
Do lighting designers acting as a distributor then start engaging in supplying conduit, wire, j-boxes, and all other manner of things required? This is the conundrum related to the entangled nature of the role. As a noted lighting designer I just spoke to said, "There are other good people that handle that stuff."
The potential transfer of order expedition and other coordination directly to the design team is also risky if the lighting designer approves directly with distribution, leaving the architect and construction team in the dark. This expectation becomes embedded in the role, often without acknowledgment of the hourly capital impact. What looks like profit for the distribution company is lost on the design side. Representatives and manufacturers are drawn into constant accommodations to their standard process, turning what was once a favor into a recurring liability.
Over time, that strains relationships. The more customized the product, the greater the supply challenge.
Perhaps the biggest challenge when designers sell the products they specify, especially when design and distribution are understood as a single entity, is the perception of conflict of interest. Even when legally separate, the market often sees them as one. Clients may not distinguish between design fees and product costs, or between two businesses under the same ownership. They may feel they are being sold to instead of being designed for.
This can dilute the perception of independent design expertise and raise doubts about the firm’s priorities.
Running two distinct business models—service and product—adds significant financial complexity. Accounting systems, cash flow structures, and tax responsibilities.
As lighting designers, we often view ourselves as operating in an “open source” environment, pursuing design purity. We are not product brands like Marcel Wanders or Philippe Starck whose design becomes their product and whose brand is intrinsically linked.
Our success is defined by never repeating previous successes. Our designs are tailored and one-of-a-kind. That creative model clashes with the commercial pressure to standardize and sell specific standard fixtures.
What may seem like a streamlined process, improving submittals, shop drawings, and delivery, can become a time sink. Overseeing both design and distribution requires time that could otherwise go to design, client service, or business development.
Even with an in-house distribution team, designers need to go through formal approval processes, just as they would with an external distributor. The required steps can negate the perceived efficiency.
Incorporating product sales also introduces financial complexity. Negotiating favorable payment terms, volume discounts, and exclusive agreements requires experience and capital. Cash flow for product sales is very different from that of design services. Purchasing inventory upfront, managing receivables, and covering large balances can strain liquidity.
Yet perhaps the most significant cost is the potential damage to long-standing industry relationships.
Even with clear boundaries between design and sales, and transparent fees, when things go wrong, clients and collaborators don’t always differentiate. Trust can be compromised. And those relationships, especially with reps and manufacturers, are often what allow us to create ambitious designs in the first place.
I have always valued my lighting representatives. They often make the impossible possible by coordinating with manufacturers. In high-end residential projects, for example, we might need a completely custom solution or a special modification. Throughout my career, reps have gone the extra mile, even for just a few fixtures, to help bring those ideas come to life.
That kind of collaboration warrants recognition. It’s a different equation than specifying a hundred standard fixtures. There’s a sliding scale between off-the-shelf and highly customized products. The more specific the solution, the more effort and collaboration are required. This is a clear case where an overage is entirely justified while co-creating for a design need.
This level of collaboration is built on trust. I recognize that not everyone will share this view, but many of my most successful design ideas wouldn’t have been possible without my reps. The more complex the project, the more essential their role becomes.
To be clear, this is not an argument against product sales. Some firms, like Focus Lighting, manage both sides exceptionally well and create brilliant design. Paul Gregory’s journey illustrates how that model can succeed. He co-founded Litelab with Rick Spalding in 1975. A turning point came with Planet Hollywood, where he was asked to supply fixtures to control project costs. That experience highlighted the practical need for designers to manage supply under certain conditions.
That said, cost control is an entirely separate conversation, and one that must be tempered by the challenges discussed above. Most designers don’t have the background or infrastructure to manage and move into sales and distribution with the experience gained from being in manufacturing. Nor should they be expected to. Focus Lighting’s success is exceptional. Not everyone is the Apple of lighting.
The IALD has published thoughtful guidelines for designers who also act as distributors. These guidelines emphasize transparency and prioritizing the client’s interests. Unfortunately, many people only hear, “It’s okay to sell and still be IALD,” without reading the fine print. The accountability and the message to the client matters.
In the end, I believe the value of a lighting designer lies in unencumbered expertise. Lighting is not a product; it’s inspired desire formed into creative expression defining the ethos of an environment. If your process becomes constrained by a list of fixtures dictated by sales, you risk losing the essence of lighting design: the fundamental nature of never repeating your previous successes.
Sales may be the key to the elevator. But remember, it goes both directions.
We allowed Paul Gregory to review the article in advance, and he offered these comments:
David correctly points out that there are many problems with suppling the lighting and controls. Yes there are problems. Success lies in the conquering of those problems.
Here is an example:
In 2000—twenty-five years ago—I was interviewed onsite at the Tribeca Grand Hotel by Architectural Lighting magazine. One of the questions was, “How much of your design actually made it into the final project?”
I replied, “100%,” and it was absolutely true. The interviewer was surprised. She mentioned she had asked the same question to six other lighting designers, and they all answered between 80 and 85 percent. When she asked these designers why, they cited examples such as:
1. The duct moved and the wall wash wouldn’t fit, and they weren’t in the loop about the change. So, no wall wash.
2. The distributor didn’t order the wire system soon enough because they were not familiar with it and ordered the easy stuff first. It kept getting a low priority, and then it was too late to get it in time for the opening. The distributor said, “Put track on the ceiling or hold the opening 3 weeks.”
3. The wall color wasn’t chosen so the color filters could be ordered in time. So, the wall wash had no color.
4. The decorative chandelier centerpiece was not ordered in time, so a standard Home Depot fixture was used rather than wait for the specified product.
There were many other examples.
The point is, someone has to be very involved and “proactive” if the project is going to come out as designed.
