Episode 22: Studio K's Karen Herold: Why Bad Lighting Kills Good Design

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the podcast about lighting matters. Our unflinching conversations uncover the nuances and complexities which shape the craft of lighting design. [00:00:11] Speaker B: We explore the pivotal whys behind a lighting designer's choices and find honest answers to your most challenging lighting questions. Because lighting matters. I'm one of your hosts, Lisa Reed with Reed Burkitt lighting design in St. Louis. [00:00:34] Speaker A: And I'm Avi Moore with Moore Lights here in Chicago. And I am so excited to have Karen Herold with us today with Studio K. Karen, thank you so much for joining us and taking time out of your extremely busy schedule to join us. [00:00:54] Speaker C: Nice to see you guys. [00:00:58] Speaker B: We've been trying to do this for. [00:00:59] Speaker C: A bit a long time. All the stars are finally alive. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Barely. [00:01:06] Speaker A: I think there was like sicknesses, storms. I think everything got in the way of this recording. [00:01:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:15] Speaker B: So it's going to be a really good one. [00:01:17] Speaker A: It's going to be a great episode. You have to work that hard, Karen, I think for the audience, I mean, we know you well, but I think tell the audience a little bit about yourself and how Studio K came to be. How did you come into the business? What do you do? Tell us a little bit about yourself. [00:01:36] Speaker C: All of that. [00:01:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:38] Speaker C: Okay. So I'm your owner of Studio K. I started this business 11 and a half years ago now, which is crazy to think. I was at a really cool company for 13 years. 5, 5, 5. Kind of where got my original kind of training. Before that I was a fashion designer. And so I came into interior design by complete coincidence at 555. We were producing a lot of high end retail fixtures and some stuff for Hospitality World. We then started working with some restaurant guy. Guys turned out that I had a kind of a talent for, it seemed like. And before you knew it, I was doing a lot of work in Vegas, kind of where I had my beginning with back in the day at the Palms Playboy Club. So I did a lot of that kind of flashy stuff. And then I met the owners of a lot of restaurants here in Chicago, Boca, most people know them and they asked me to design Grow and Goat and that kind of started my career as a restaurant designer. And after Stephanie Izard, there were a lot of other chefs that wanted our help. So, yeah, that's kind of what we do. We spend most of our times doing restaurant, but we do a lot of work out west now. I love the mountains, so I tell every person they get 10% off if you bring me to the mountains. [00:03:11] Speaker A: So I like that idea. [00:03:14] Speaker C: Great amount of work in Utah in Colorado. Now in Jackson Hole, we're doing some heli ski work in Canada. So it's a wide ranging set of clients. So every day is kind of crazier than the one before, but fun most of the time. [00:03:40] Speaker A: Well, and I guess. So what do you love about what you do? Like what, what, what part of what you do gives you the most energy? [00:03:52] Speaker C: Very easy. My clients. I really drive energy for my clients. I'm a highly emotional, driven person. And so for me, it's really important to be able to deliver what those clients want. Studio K is known to be able to kind of go from anywhere from Nobu Hotel to work for McDonald, because for me, I always say it doesn't matter what we design, it's just a set of skills that you have. And so for me, it's very important to showcase that. It's not about my taste, my personal taste. Sometimes it is when someone asked me to do their home, but most of the time it's just a skill set to create a specific energy in a highly detailed space. So for me, it's the people that I work with and I'm inspired by. And then second is collaborations like with yourself. I love, after now training and managing people for 25 years. My favorite moments are when I'm with peers and we're just doing things. Like I love working with art consultants. I love working with architects, mill workers, artists. I just like all the adjacencies and the overlap between these adjacencies because I feel it's just a continued education that you kind of don't pay for, but you just get through collaborative sessions. [00:05:25] Speaker B: I love what you said about the energy that you're creating in a space. We use that example a lot for lighting. The kind of, you know, two different kinds of restaurants and they. You can just picture it very easily. Two very different kinds of lighting, but also very different finishes. [00:05:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:44] Speaker B: And yeah, you're creating. [00:05:45] Speaker C: I actually once did a space in Vegas, a nightclub. It's called Moon on Top of the Palms. And I remember saying then my work was pretty much just to create a template for the lighting designer to do that work. Because at the end of the day, lighting makes or breaks every single project. I can't believe that I've been in this business for 25 years. I've been for the last 10 of them. I've been saying I want to take lighting design classes because it can, it can ruin everything as we know, but it can also make everything that even when it's very little. I did quite A few projects with Steve Wynn. And I remember he always said to me, like, there's no need to design anything if you're not going to light it correctly. She might as well not design it. And I felt that was a very true statement. [00:06:43] Speaker A: I love that statement. [00:06:45] Speaker C: Yeah. And, you know, another. Another little piece of information I had about Steve. Every light fixture at the Wind has a peach filter because he's like, you need to make the ladies feel good, and they look better with a peach filter. So when you're in the wind, your skin looks amazing. [00:07:11] Speaker A: Yeah, there's that old. I think it was Phillips had that incandescent. The. A lamp that had the pink covering on it, and it just. You just look better. [00:07:25] Speaker C: Better, healthier. Yeah, yeah, exactly. To make them. [00:07:30] Speaker B: Well, we could go down a. Down a hole here with LEDs and the spectrum in them and how there's not a lot of pink and everybody doesn't look good or feel good. It's a really work. Work to get that. [00:07:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:47] Speaker B: Get the reds. [00:07:49] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, you have to. I think you have to have the lighting. I mean, Karen, you said it right. Light makes it all happen. Right. You can't see any of these elements. You can't create an environment without the right light. And, you know, Steve Wynn talking about that. That pink. Right. I think. Let us entertain you. The Rich Melman always talks about the glow. The glow of a room, that. That warm glow. Right. Rob and Kevin at Boca talk. Just ambiance and blend. Right. Like each of these restaurant tours have a. A name for the light effect they're looking for. And. And they have this language. Right. And you have to learn that language, and it applies to everything that's in their spaces. [00:08:52] Speaker C: Absolutely. I say a lot of times how I like to. I don't remember if we did that with you. It's many years ago. Do you remember the Betty. Was it you? Probably not. The beginning restaurant people, I don't think they had that kind of budget to work with separate consultants. But the lighting turned out really well. And I said it's like using a brush in a space and brushing this way and having lights at different levels within the space and some coming from underneath the booth and some sprinkled on columns and some so you create a layering to break up. Because the hardest part as a restaurant designer is always the space between eye level when you sit and the ceiling, because it's all dining tables, so nothing in between happens. Because many times you can't hang lighting lower because they move these tables around a Lot of time. So it's really hard to create layering in these type of spaces where all the seating is at the same height. And so I feel a lot of times when we are lucky enough to work with consultants like you, it's like having that help in. How can we brush the space with, like, you know, a flare here and a thing there and like anything but making it consistent. Like my. In my old days before restaurant work, I did a lot of retail work. It's almost the opposite in retail. And so in retail, you need that consistency and a lack of shadows and. And what I love in hospitality design, where we can just add so much more drama by purposeful tuning it up or down, by how we play with the light, the way how we play different in heights of furniture or in textures or, you know, many of those other decisions we make that we know we can control the energy by just the decisions we make. But there's nothing a stronger way to do that than obviously with light. [00:11:01] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's. That's really well stated. All of the different materials, whether it's the back of a booth or a plant wall or whatever it is that you. What, like, you have all these typical. And tricks, I guess, for how to break up the space and then the light, you know, that's the palette that. [00:11:21] Speaker C: Then we play with. [00:11:22] Speaker B: But we can't do anything until you break that space up in interesting ways. [00:11:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:29] Speaker A: So, Karen, you were talking a little bit about, like, the great times where you get to work with consultants, like lighting designers. How do you explain to your customers that are like, well, aren't you doing the lighting? Why do I need this other person? Why do I have to spend the money? How do you go about doing that, explaining that. [00:11:55] Speaker C: It'S so simple. It's like many times the question is just more surprising than the answer because it is like, of course you need a lighting designer the way you need a mechanical designer, the way you have a plumber. You know, you don't have your tile installer, do your outlets. Like, I'm an interior designer. I. I can direct it because at the end of the day, I'm a director. But you need each of their traits to do their job. Otherwise you can just kind of throw good money at the back. Because there's plenty of people who don't use lighting designers who spend a crazy amount of lights and they overlight it many times. And they do that because they're afraid that otherwise they wouldn't have the amount of foot candles they need. And so they I think many times to work with a consultant will allow you to save the money later on in the buying the products if you're just smart about it. So, yeah, to me, when I talk to clients about it, I always just say, it's just not what I do. Like, many things I don't do. That's definitely one of them. Like, I'm not going to lay out the kitchen either. Not a good idea. [00:13:13] Speaker B: I've always thought that's very interesting that professionals like yourself end up selling our services on our behalf. You know, you bring us in. So until you've made that first pitch for a lighting designer, and to Avi's question, you know, how can we help you make that pitch? What can we provide that makes it easier for you to, I don't want to say convince, but to, you know, to talk about the importance of lighting. [00:13:42] Speaker C: Design, I think it's just about education. And Fawcett's very clear because we have a very hard line. Like, we do not do it. Like, period. It's not in my scope. So we do not do it. If we don't bring it on, many times the architects do. It's just a different. Most of the time that's a different relationship. And a different type of lighting designer, that's more. How many architects are more pragmatic? And it just two plus two kind of equals four. Where I think many of the interior designers and then the consultants we bring around is two plus two is the five situation. So for me, it's hard when we have to work with a lighting designer from the architect. It's just harder because it's so pragmatic and it's tough to get that emotion out of it. [00:14:42] Speaker A: Right. And that fine line between, yeah, there's enough foot candles versus the emotional foot candles. Right? [00:14:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:14:52] Speaker A: Lisa and I recently recorded a podcast just talking about the math of. In the technical side of what we do versus the creative side of what we do. And there's standards for how much light should be in a kitchen and how much light should be on a dining room table in a restaurant. But none of that really matters if there's a reason to do something different because it creates the right emotion, it creates the right atmosphere. The create creates right ambiance and ultimately leads to the right perfection of a space. Right. And if you're just counting foot candles and counting watts, you're not going to get to a creative solution. And for your team, I mean, that would make it really difficult. Right? And there's. There's shifts, you have to make with finishes sometimes to align lights. And it's a constant back and forth negotiation. [00:15:48] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I think the play back and forth is really important. And like this morning, I directed a space to the architect, which I don't even know if they have a lighting designer yet, but I gave this to them as just my direction. And my whole direction is like, nowadays things have changed so much with all the rechargeable lamps on the table. Like every. Not everyone, but 90, 80, 90% of my clients now have rechargeable lamps on the table, which means you don't really need a light over each anymore. Depends on the space, obviously. And so my directive was, I just want to. I was in a space somewhere in Austin in an old villa that was turned into a hotel. And what I really liked is they had been very smart. They couldn't put recessed cans because this is an old Victorian something. And they used a string light with like, not a normal string light bulb, but like, there's a little bit of a shade situation over it. And they just stretched them over the ceiling. And I thought it was so smart because it was a historic building. That's a way to do that in a more creative way. And so my directive to this specific architect, because also the type of job this is like, what if we would be in a building where we couldn't have cans? Because most of us interior designers, we're not getting extremely excited about cans. What if we didn't have them? We couldn't put them in because we were in historic building. What would we do to get there? My hope with that specific project is the Cairns would not even be on during service. But it's just for cleaning. And so how do we layer, starting from the table with then washers on the wall, from behind cabinets, from behind mirrors. Like creating this glows, like beyond, for example, is one of those things that I think you guys just killed it at. Where there's no ever where you're looking into a light fixture. It's just not. No one is ever asking for it. No one likes it. And so there's just this light that is just there. There's a constant glowiness of various things that makes a guest not even realize that's kind of the thing, right? To do something so smart that it seems so easy. And that's beyond, in my opinion, where it's just like these people that look effortless, but they spend two hours in the mirror, looking in the mirror, putting makeup on to look like they just woke up that way. [00:18:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:18:38] Speaker C: So it's kind of. That's what lighting can do if it's done really smart to make it feel it's not even there, but yet it's the most important thing there. [00:18:48] Speaker A: 1. Go ahead. [00:18:51] Speaker B: You used an analogy of yourself as a director and that you're kind of directing the space. And I think about that's, that's what lighting is doing too, in a way, because it's directing your focus. It's, you know, just like a conductor of an orchestra or a director of a play. You know, you control where someone's attention goes with the light. [00:19:16] Speaker C: Yep. Or not even. We're not to look. Yeah. [00:19:22] Speaker B: And maybe we don't want to toe kick light on that dirty floor, you know? [00:19:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and I think to, to that point, you also need a client that is willing to buy into all of it too. Right. Like for beyond, I think had a customer who was willing to let your team and our. And my team, like, force these ideas and, and hide the light and tuck it here and tuck it there and, and make it disappear and make you think that there is no light, but there's light. Right. And I, I think there's, there's that challenge that comes in too, is, is really getting that customer to understand and, and have that layer of trust. And I, you know, of all the clients that we've worked with, like Karen, you just have this way. And I think it comes from what you were saying with. You gain that energy from your, your clients. Right. You just, you build that trust with the customers and they, they, they understand it. Like, it's really, if Karen says it, this is what it's going to be. And, and that's really what a director in the theater world does. Right. Like, yeah. You put all the money and everything into that director's hand and you say, fine, make me a play that's going to make a lot of money. [00:20:50] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think, like, it's very, I feel very fortunate to, in this point of my career, to have that luxury, because. Definitely a luxury to have that trust from, I would say most of my clients. Because I also think before you start working with a company like ours, that's just kind of the choice you make, because there's a lot of companies out there that might be more cost effective and they might be able to draw exactly that, what you have in your head. But then you don't come to us. So it's also somewhere you make that decision and it's just like a trust file and doing someone's House in Cabo. And. And we're working on for two years, and we're now literally at every rug and every piece of art. And all of a sudden he starts to get a little involved, and many times that's not for the better. And so finally we kept trying to get a meeting, kind of like what we had with this podcast. And so finally he just, can we do it then? Can we like. No, cannot do it then. And then I would like, can you do that? He cannot make it then. So finally I said, or you just commit to the trust for help and you just blame me at the end. I mean, I'm gonna be blamed for something and there's gonna be something in the house that he's not gonna like. But I think overall the risk with that is less great than. We've all seen the homes and the projects that were Frankensteined by what the sister's wife, wife, sister's daughter, neighbor thought of it. You know, it doesn't get better. And so we're very outspoken when we take on clients that that's just not what we do and we don't collaborate in that way. I gladly collaborate with peers, but not with my clients. And they have say over the floor plans and programmatically and operationally how everything works. And they give me the directive. And after that, they just need to trust they'll be fine. So it's, it's. Again, there's still risk. There's always risk. And every single one's a prototype, but it's less risky for the client than the collaboration. [00:23:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's brilliant. And they know what they're getting when. When they come to you, they're. [00:23:12] Speaker C: Yeah, many times when they start in the beginning meddling a little bit, I'm like, remember when you first called me because you saw X, Y or Z project? I did those completely without your help. So we're good. [00:23:27] Speaker B: I mean, I was going to ask and maybe the answer is just what you said. Just trust me, I was going to ask. Lighting is one of those things that's hard to talk about. So do you talk about that with clients in words or in pictures? Or is that also one of those things that you say, you're just going to have to trust me on this because I can't describe it to you in a way you're going to understand. You'll just see it when it's done. [00:23:54] Speaker C: Well, the trust needs to be built. So the trust, you don't get it. So it's all built through other projects. So kind of Proof is in the pudding. Or it's because a period of time working with the same client where it's kind of like, I have some clients, I could say that we should have yellow stripes on the ceiling with pink dots. And they'd be like, okay. He says it at some point after you're doing it long enough and someone has had financial success partly because of that, then you get that. Now, for the first one, the one where you start working in the beginning, there's a lot of proof is in the pudding of other people's pudding. And that is one thing that I. I feel lighting designers could do a better job bridging the gap between the knowledge that clients have and even consultants like me have and what you guys have. Like, I think there is better visual ways. I worked with one amazing lighting designer in London for Nobu Hotel, and they did a great job in their renderings. And, you know, they're. So I think whether it's vis tools where the AI can help in that, or even just old school pictures of, hey, in this space we did this. And so if you would want to sell more direct, it needs to be at a level like what I do with a lot of my clients. And I look at rugs. I recently was in Mexico City to look shop for rugs, and I'm working with a rug designer and I'm like, listen, I need a Mercedes, I need a Volkswagen, and I need like a starter Vespa. So the starter Vespa goes in the kids rooms, the Mercedes is in the main living room. And I need some stuff in between. But don't show me Mercedes for the kids room because I wouldn't know. I don't know enough about rugs to know what the cost is and even what is the right cost for a rug. I don't even know that I believe in lighting design. That's the same way that if you can be very explicit to a client, like, don't ever go lower than this, because if you don't buy the right drivers, your light will flicker, so you might as well not do it. People don't know that. So they start ve ing drivers and they don't know that they're cutting out the aorta. Right? But that's something they don't know. And I do think there is more layman's terms, to talk to clients about it to make them feel safe without foot candles or where it comes from, whatever. It's like, this is the top. We know you cannot afford that. But if you go all the Way to the bottom. You might as well not do it or not hire us. Like I tell many clients not to hire me because if you have less than a certain budget, spend that money on and not on my brain, like just don't do it. So I feel that in your realm, if you can be very clear in where are we talking here and does it still aid the project and go into a level where, you know, there is no ve and if it's ve, there's very clear. Thing is, okay, we cannot also wash the back in the toilet room or something. You know that like it's those things. But you don't ve across the board because that's when you might as well not do it. And you get a worse look if you start vegan with the wrong products. So I think that that's something that many, for many of the clients, lighting design is still very abstract. And I think it doesn't have to be. It could be more illustrative. It is. [00:27:56] Speaker B: And I'm intrigued by your analogies and your word pictures. And that's what we need to do for sure. Just to speak people's language. [00:28:04] Speaker A: I also wonder, Karen, do you think that having more projects of different scales kind of in the public realm that show lighting design meaning, you know, 5,000 square foot fitness facility plus a Burj Khalifa. Right. Like having that scale of project that's more publicized, as this was done with a lighting designer, would help that story a little bit? Or you think this audience that, you know, the ownership audience just. That doesn't matter. It's really just about better understanding about. [00:28:44] Speaker C: The money, money, money. [00:28:47] Speaker A: Well, it's funny, Lisa and I were also talking about that recently and just how much everything in the end kind of has to lead to profit no matter what. [00:28:59] Speaker C: But. And that's what we do. Otherwise we would have been artists. Right? So. [00:29:03] Speaker A: Right. [00:29:04] Speaker C: We. When people in my office stress out, I say, don't stress. We're making rich people richer. So doesn't really matter. Like, you know, we're not saving anyone from hunger. So in that realm, I think for lighting for. Well, for, for, for clients, but it's interior design lighting that aids that or whatever the traits are. There needs to be a very clear explanation from where you are to where you need to be. And again, there should also be a humility in it and they should understand that. I recently designed a restaurant for Ritz Carlton and you know, where all the styling came from. Zara Home. Who would have known this client was so impressed because apparently people who work in the Ritz Carlton sphere of things, pick vases that are $3,000 because that's the realm. And I just think it's a waste of money because no one will see it. Everyone just cares if it's black or white or pink and how big. It doesn't matter. And so there's a specific style in this restaurant. And I just start. I always did it for the Boca restaurant too. I just start with the cheapest balena. Remember balena? Were you involved in so balena. I literally went to World Market because I needed thousands of shelves filled and I just wanted colored glassware that would sparkle with some rechargeable LEDs in between. So I would like do the rounds at that point. I had a little Mini Cooper convertible put the roof down and I would start at like, you know, north and Clybourne. I got a World Market and a little bit of Crate and Barrel and then to west and then it kind of ended at Jason Home and Garden for like three fancy, fancy things that I would put right in front. But that's what I tell many clients. Like, if you have $1,000 to spend, the last thing you want to do is spread that money evenly because you might as well not spend it because if it doesn't go the whole way, you're just washing it down the drain. But if you put a little bit in just getting it there, but put most of the money, the 60% at one very amazing thing that people will remember that in my opinion is a better way to go around it. So I think if clients would have a work back number if you guys in a faster way, easier way could give them an end all, be all number. Not like, oh, this is our number. But because of that, the electrician is five times expensive. No, if it's just like, hey, for us to do our work right and to be worth our while, you should spend X on lighting and. And then stay within that and be like, okay. Then I think it's more transparent. And a lot of times client because it's so not visual. Only the result of it is visual. Right? Not what you do. And so clients don't know it. The ve when you look at larger. Like before we hopped on camera, we were talking about some shared clients in the residential or like the high rise world. Clients will never know what was actually bought from what you did. They'll never know unless someone is a whistleblower. But you know the fact that what you expect is not what was bought. Because remember fancy restaurant we did in town here and you did a great job. But guess what? At the end there were issues because the contractor didn't buy what you told him to buy because something fell off of a truck from China somewhere else. Well, you look really bad. [00:33:09] Speaker A: It's actually even worse is that a contractor bought everything we were supposed to, but they did a horrible job installing it and ultimately put us and Karen and everybody all mad because this electrician is still out on the side. I think it was last week fixing things that they broke in the process of installing. [00:33:37] Speaker C: It. [00:33:38] Speaker A: You know, it is. We actually have a project right now that's going with that same general contractor. And we said we will not work on this job without interviewing the electrician. [00:33:51] Speaker C: Yeah, like I think protecting kind of what you do is, is a great idea. But with that all starts with money. And I don't know how hard that is in your field, but I have developed a system, for example, with all of our FF and E, meaning furniture, lighting, things that were responsible for picking as in decorative lighting. We have an existing spreadsheet and I just know that the Mercedes table is this and the Vespa table is that. And I can just pre. Like it's just like very little work to get a ballpark number. So for a client to know if they're on the hook for a million dollars worth of furniture and lighting or $200,000 is a big number, a big difference. And so if I very early on can many times about managing expectations. So if early on I can say, hey, just keep in mind we're at half a million here. Now I know that in reality it's only 450, but I don't say that so that later on I'm the hero. I'm like, Look, I saved $50,000. So that's what I think that linking it to money right away and making it real. Because clients think they know about interior design because it's visual. And they can say, I went to Restoration Hardware and I could get a dining chair for lighting. They cannot do that. So I think it's so vague and so abstract that many clients just. It's like when you walk by a window. My average twin sister who's very conservative financially. And we will walk in the store and if there's no pricing, she will just walk out. Because it's like if there's no price, I can't afford it. Which that is kind of the thing with lighting too. Right. Like clients are afraid of it because of how abstract it is. [00:35:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And the transparency that, the lack of Transparency that exists beyond the designer through the. The mess of lighting is, is a constant struggle that, that lighting designers deal with. We've had many a podcast recordings about it and we could carry on but I want to be cautious. We have limited time. [00:36:18] Speaker C: I want to give you one other like please run the advice role here. I think educating interior designers. So for example, Antonio is a guy who does a lot of our Italian plaster, which I'm kind of wake up and go to bed with Italian plaster. So people joke like it's not a studio K job if there's no plaster on the wall. But Antonio has worked for 15 years or so with me and he has like our designers have come to his studio and they see how it works and because for him it's all normal. For me it's normal because I've been working with it for so long. But if you're a 25 year old coming out of school, you don't know, you don't understand what the product is and why it' has so much depth. And so to really educate the interior designers on like the continued education portion of it where you get all your, you know, because architects have to do that. Interior designers kind of can. But I believe getting it so that the interior designers understand it, so that besides me owning a company, besides the top clients, I don't work on every project anymore in our company. So getting those D2s and D3s educated enough that they can speak to it I think is worthwhile investment. [00:37:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a great suggestion. And like we said a second ago, seeing light and seeing what it does does so much more than saying, well, if you shift the color temperature from 4000 to 2700, it does this. That's meaningless. You have to see that. [00:38:07] Speaker A: And I think it's also about the process too, right? The process that a lighting designer goes down. What you expect from a lighting designer, it's not just somebody picking out down lights or, or tape light underneath the bar or in the liquorizers. It's it's controls, it's da da da da da. And the process and the communication and the, and the, and the, the conversation to expect of a design partner. So you know, we, we've talked a little bit on the podcast. I'd love to get your thought closing thoughts here, but we've kind of been talking about this idea that there are four visual design professionals. We're still working on the exact language. We have four visual professionals in the built environment. Architects, interior designers, landscape designers and lighting designers. [00:39:05] Speaker C: And really art consultants. [00:39:07] Speaker A: Art consultants. Oh, yeah. [00:39:09] Speaker C: There you go. [00:39:09] Speaker A: There you go. I know. I see. This is. [00:39:11] Speaker B: I knew we were missing someone. [00:39:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. You need art consultants. And in many of it is also stylists because we include it heavily. Because it's one of my, you know, things that I like. But many interior design companies don't have stylists on board, so no one who picks the knickknacks, which then ends up being maske dolls. [00:39:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:39:37] Speaker C: So if you really want to make it complete. [00:39:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:40] Speaker C: Those two are crucial. [00:39:42] Speaker A: I would. I love it. [00:39:44] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:39:45] Speaker A: Absolutely. And final question before we close out. Favorite illuminated space that you've been to or want to go to. Maybe you've seen a photo or something. [00:39:58] Speaker C: Oh, well, I just want to say it's kind of an easy one because we talked about it. But Bian, to me, I also really loved what we did with Uma. [00:40:08] Speaker A: Yeah. When it's working. [00:40:12] Speaker C: When it's working, the idea of Uma. But beyond, to me, beyond is kind of the. I woke up this way. But not beyond is a project that I brought so many people to show how much even the right lighting can mean you have to do less in design. So I think if I could choose and someone would say, okay, we have $1 million that I give you for your finishes, but you cannot have a lighting designer or you're gonna get 600,000, but then you get a lighting designer and lighting package with it. But then you have to do it for six. I choose that second one every day of the week because kind of going back to the win statement is like, if. You might as well not do it if you don't light it correctly. And I feel beyond is that if you look at beyond in itself, like in a rendering, just white walls and a couple of, you know, it's not right. [00:41:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:41:23] Speaker C: But it's the light that brings it to life. And Sean's told you. [00:41:28] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. [00:41:29] Speaker C: I mean, Sean like this whole cross lighting where he did it from the bottom on this side and the top on that side and. Yeah, yeah. I just can't say enough of that. [00:41:42] Speaker A: He had a post it note on his screen for the entire length of that job is light it without any light. [00:41:49] Speaker C: Yeah, there you go. Damn. [00:41:52] Speaker B: Nice. [00:41:53] Speaker C: Well, yeah. [00:41:55] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Karen. This is really a pleasure. [00:41:59] Speaker C: You know we got the memo of wearing purple. [00:42:02] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. Like, next time, I don't know why you're not looking. I have a purple shirt on. [00:42:08] Speaker C: Check the memo. [00:42:09] Speaker A: I should. I should have changed, you know, in preparation but again, Karen, I know you're very busy. I really appreciate it and thank you for sharing your stories about how lighting matters. And it's so perfect. Like thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you guys. [00:42:29] Speaker C: Was fun. [00:42:30] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:42:32] Speaker C: Have a great summer. [00:42:34] Speaker B: Lighting Matters as we wrap up, we want to reiterate how much we value your time and we hope you found it as much fun to listen listened to as we had creating it. Remember to like it and share this content with your friends and colleagues. [00:42:50] Speaker A: The opinions expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the sponsors. Our content has general application, but we recommend obtaining personalized guidance from a professional IALD lighting designer such as RBLD or morelights for your next endeavor. [00:43:09] Speaker C: Sam.