Guest Authors

  By Brian Liebel & Rick Utting, DarkSky International, Tucson, AZ. Executive Summary Upward-emitted outdoor light has long been identified as a source of atmospheric light pollution, a.k.a. sky glow. This form of light pollution is an obvious contributor to the brightening of the nighttime sky and can be observed as glowing domes of light [...]

  By Mariel Acevedo, MIES – ALR & Amanda Schaneman, MIES – ETC Trauma informed design (TID) is a newer form of practice in the architectural community.  It’s been around since 2013 and is gaining traction in all kinds of building types.  As the work becomes more prominent, the lighting community should understand the language [...]

  By Heesu Chung, Brand Lead, Warm by Design The consumer backlash against the “big light” is easy to dismiss as social-media shorthand, but the underlying issue is familiar to anyone in lighting: a single high source is being asked to handle every job in the room. For years, the residential lighting conversation was dominated [...]

  By C. Webster Marsh, Lighting Controls Designer, Sladen Feinstein Integrated Lighting Changing White Lighting: What is the End-User’s Experience? I have learned that one of the fastest ways to lose someone outside the lighting industry is to ask, ‘Do you want 2700K or 3500K?’ It is a perfectly normal question for us inside the [...]

  By Eric Pollack, President, ESP Prosearch & David Shiller, Executive Recruiter, ESP Prosearch The following article was originally published in US Lighting Trends. Special thanks to David Gordon and Linda Longo. From our vantage point as executive recruiters in the lighting industry, 2025 saw a pronounced contraction in hiring activity. Organizations adopted a defensive [...]

  By Bill Chan, President at LiteController Inc. During talks I’ve given over the years, I often encourage people to take a morning walk outside for at least half an hour—so their eyes are exposed to daylight and their circadian rhythm can stay aligned. However, I am often asked a very practical question: “If I [...]

  By Brad Koerner, Creative Director, Koerner Designs There is plenty of latent opportunity in launching application-level innovations in specification-grade, interior architectural lighting categories. But the problem is that no one is looking. The architectural lighting industry has become so stagnant that for the past decade, no one is even considering it as a possible [...]

  By Geoff Marlow, Founder & President, Marlow Advisory Group This article is reprinted with permission from MarlowAdvisoryGroup.com. The lighting industry is at an inflection point. After decades in this business, I’ve watched the same patterns repeat, the same mistakes compound, and the same opportunities slip through our fingers. It’s time we had an honest [...]

  By Maggie Swift, CEO at Unframed Digital Lighting specifiers are no longer discovering products the way manufacturers expect them to. In 2026, architects, designers, and engineers are doing the majority of their product research independently – online, on demand, and often long before a trade show visit or a conversation with a sales representative [...]