Designing lights

Is lighting about the product or the experience? Some designers are able to express the poetic nature of light but don’t understand the particular demands of this family of products. Light fittings need good resolution of detail, the correct material choice and an awareness of the practical demands (lamp maintenance, cleaning, installation). All this needs to look easy and the fitting itself should still express the beauty of light itself.

In my readings as part of my research degree I came across the following from an Art Journal in 1895. The author was un-named ( alas) but he or she has summarized it well:

"To design for electric light fittings is one of the things that seems so easy, and is yet to difficult; the good fitting has, as the good Philistine would say, so little to show for itself. Numbers of small details make up the design of the whole."

Got it in one– and yet we all still love designing lights!