Lighting can draw attention, or reveal texture, color and shape. It can make merchandise look more beautiful, or it can create a “big box” sterile effect.
Walk into a designer boutique and you likely will see carefully arranged lights that highlight and enhance contrast — almost a striated effect, although so subtle only a lighting expert would notice it.
“Spot lighting reveals texture,” said David Apfel of David Apfel Lighting Design in New York, whose clients include Armani, Sears Holdings Corp. and Marc Jacobs. Historically, specialty shops have tended to use more spot lighting, and department and mass market retailers are more brightly lit.
New multilamp slot fixtures make it easy to get a high-end look and are simple to install. The lamps adjust to focus on a single area or many directions at once. Stores are also going green with bulbs that use less energy and throw off less heat yet, are brighter and save money. These include metal halide lights and LED lights, which typically illuminate display cases.
“The whole direction in lighting has gone to much brighter stores,” said Bill Jansing of Lighting Consultants of Dallas, whose firm has lighted Holt Renfrew in Vancouver, the Ferragamo flagship on New York’s Fifth Avenue and DKNY stores. “You create lights and darks now with higher-intensity sources. People respond to brighter areas so the store feels like it is inviting.”
“People are attracted by colors and contrast,” added Ron Harwood, president and founder of Illuminating Concepts of Farmington Hills, Mich. His clients include Nike, Diesel, Wal-Mart and Borders.
Bright display — like James Clar’s “light paintings,” decorative light installations that have been featured in Dwell magazine, or Barneys New York’s fish tanks — attract the eye and focus attention.
“If you walk into a room, your eye is immediately drawn to the brightest spot,” Apfel said.
Well-designed lighting can nudge shoppers to buy. “If you have great lighting but a poorly designed store and product, the lighting won’t sell stuff for you,” he said. “But if it’s a product the public really wants, and you display it in a manner that attracts attention and you light it well, you will draw attention to the product and help sell it.”
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Mass retailers like Kmart and Wal-Mart use general lighting because it’s cheaper, Apfel said. Traditionally, big boxes are lit to a higher level than specialty stores, which do more accent lighting. “It’s driven by pushing energy costs down and return on investment up,” Jansing added.
In midrange department stores, it’s common to create even, ambient light without knowing precisely where merchandise will go,” Jansing said.
Trends in lighting design and technology are giving birth to new concepts.
For instance, Wal-Mart has been putting skylights into the roofs of its one-story stores, Harwood said. This cuts energy costs and creates a more natural type of light, which is excellent for hardware and home goods. However, in apparel, it’s best to use artificial light so customers can clearly see details.
Generally, there is not much difference in lighting strategy between brands, he added. There are exceptions, however.
“Nike, for example, was creating an environment that was both gymnasium-like and stadium-like,” Harwood noted. “The strategy was to create a lot of contrast and a lot of shadows, but never on the merchandise, only on the architecture. The merchandise itself was extremely well lit.”
And then there are Ruehl No. 92 and Hollister, the Abercrombie & Fitch spin-offs whose mall-based storefronts resemble beachfront hotels and town houses. Once inside, it feels like a party in someone’s house, or perhaps a nightclub. There is booming music and dark rooms off a hallway.
“It’s a young person’s store,” Apfel said. “It’s practically dark.” He notes the lighting is part of a “thoroughly thought-out” lifestyle concept. “If you took a typical store design and made it dark, it would be a disaster. I don’t know if you will see more of this, or if it will go away.”