RESIDENTIAL
Light Can Help Us #3:
Knowing More and Feeling Better
By DAVID K. WARFEL
How we talk about light can make the difference between a client willing to invest and a client reluctant to take our advice.
It is all too easy for me to soothe a team member, upset after a meeting with a difficult client, with attempted humor: “Lighting design would be a lot easier without all these clients.” If our clients would trust us to make the decisions, provide us with an unlimited supply of cash, and stay out of the design process, we could achieve extraordinary results, every time. But instead, our clients push back, make cuts, fight the expense, and ask for more proof in the way of cost estimates, fixture options, calculations, and more, all while demanding we keep our fees in check. Lighting design for the residential market is easy; convincing clients to let us do our job is the real challenge. There was a time when I was convinced that the ends justified the means. If I was a jerk, used scare tactics, or overwhelmed resistance with technical jargon, I could consider it a job well done, so long as the results were beautiful. This works to a 52
designing lighting
point, but if the process is painful for our clients, then we have detracted from the experience even after the beautiful results are revealed. If we change our approach, I believe we can achieve extraordinary success while ensuring a better process for our clients along the way. Changing our approach can be as simple as changing our words. In the first articles of this series, I explored the general concept of lighting terminology and proposed that we seek our own languages of light that communicate beyond “what” into the more powerful realm of “why.” I dug into beneficial darkness, the foundation upon which good light is built. I then looked at how light for our hands can help us see what we are doing so we can do it better. Light, the first gift of the universe, can also help us know more and feel better. What client does not desire these?
