Episode Transcript
[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.
Hello. Welcome to episode number six of the Lighting Matters podcast. I'm so excited about today's episode. I'm Lisa Reid, and I'm here with my co host.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Hi, everybody. Avi Moore. Coming from a remote location today, we'll see how this works.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: I'm so excited. This is the first woman that we've had as a guest on our podcast. Shame on us.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: Shame, shame, shame.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: But welcome, Kelly. Welcome.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: Thank you. Hi. It'll say Colleen up there, but most people call me Kelly. Nice to be here, guys. I'm happy to be on your podcast.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: And this episode. There's a little cost associated with these episodes, but this episode is sponsored by Prudential Lighting. We're so grateful to them to helping us out today. We've used a little bit of their product. Great rep here in Chicago.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: We really love prudential, and I probably really first got familiar with them when I was living in California working with Kelly, because they're a California based company and just really good people. They're really good for all, all across the whole project. We've used them on the Muni here in St. Louis, on the Muni offices, just the prudential snap, and it was just all around. Worked for everything, worked for the offices, worked for the seamstress area, worked in painting. So, yeah, we're fans. And Kelly, I know you said you are, too.
[00:02:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Here at LDA, we echo that as well. It's nice that they're local for us. So they've always been super supportive, not just as a rep, but as a manufacturer. Like you said, guys, they have an incredible line. So it's a fail safe kind of go to for us, which I think is nice. I think we do a lot of. We're going to talk a little bit today about custom lighting. I know. And we, one layer to that is modified standard fixtures. And they're great at listening to all of our demands and requests to make little, sometimes simple adjustments, sometimes. Not that I know that all of us here and those listening do all the time in our, in our lighting design world. So they're, they've always been a great partner in projects as well. So we greatly appreciate that.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: One of my favorite things is they do dolly. We only do Dolly. It's on their cut sheets. Very important for us. So that's. That's always my first stop. I mean, I don't want to see the leds through the lenses and things, which, of course, they have that capability. But, you know, it also comes to, I need to be able to control it, and I want it on the cut sheet. And they were fairly early adopters of embedding Dolly and having it right on their cut sheets, so that was really important to us.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Awesome. So, Kelly, who are you, and how did you get here?
[00:03:16] Speaker C: Well, you're sitting in an office in St. Louis. I grew up in St. Louis, and I actually always wanted to be an architect. Like probably a lot of people in our industry. My dad kind of pushed me towards the engineering side. He's like, oh, I know you like architecture and you want to do all this, but there's that whole math and science thing that you can do. Why don't you try this? Which led me to University of Kansas. Cause I had a couple family friends that had gone through the program. Rock Chuck trio here.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Rock Chuck, should we be.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: If we start talking basketball, it'll sideline into a whole other conversation here. I know. Cause I know we're very passionate about that. Lisa and I've been to Allen Hill house together, different podcasts. But I loved Ku. I loved my experience at KU, of course, like, we all here did. And it really gave me an opportunity early on to learn about lighting, and I didn't even know I wanted. Of course, I was still gung ho on, sticking around, getting my master's in architecture after the architectural engineering program. But very early on my freshman year, I had a certain course by a certain professor, Lou Michael, who would talk about, just even in ancient architecture, how they would filter light into the buildings before electric light was even a thing. I was fascinated by it, but I didn't know that that was a career. And I went home that summer was back to St. Louis. I have a good friend whose family happens to own one of the bigger electrical companies in St. Louis. And I'm like, I want an internship. I was motivated to get an internship. And he actually is the one that said to me, didn't you say something about lighting? He had picked up on some random conversation that I had had with one of my best friends from high school and high school across from Lisa's office.
And, yeah, right there. And, yeah, long story short, he introduced me to Randy Burkitt, and I interned with Randy for a couple summers. I work, interned with Hok. There was a couple summers where they shared me which was fun and taught me early on how to juggle and juggle projects and schedules and communicate good.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Skill in this field.
[00:05:18] Speaker C: Something we've all had to learn. We had to learn it early on, right. Be adaptable, of course. And then the summer before I graduated, I had a great opportunity to go to Lam partners, and I was actually their first ever intern, so that was super fun. I worked really closely with Glen Glenn hang Miller that summer, so that was fun. Got to work on a wide array of projects, and then I graduated in the late nineties, so it was a great time to graduate. There was a lot of opportunities. Didn't think I ever wanted to come to LA. I was pretty gung ho on going back to the east coast, but I met this guy named Chip Israel and this girl named Lisa Reed and another one named Andy Powell, who's another Jayhawk. And it was a small group at the time. I think we were what, like ten people at the time. And it just felt like home early on. And I always say I got really lucky to find my lighting home early on. And then fast forward to today. I'm Chip's partner and 25 years, I just celebrated 25 years here, so it's pretty crazy. It goes really fast. But I always, like, I tell our staff here all the time, I think we're very lucky. Like, every job has its goods and its bads, but I'm like, we get paid for our opinion on lighting, and that's pretty cool at the end of the day, so there's always all kinds of things that happen in projects and the ups and downs. But at the end of the day, we've been pretty fortunate as well with the clients and the types of projects we get to do, too. So that's the fun part of it.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: I love your story. So today we're going to talk about custom products, custom lighting, and so we can just transition to that. You were talking about the great projects that you get to work on, and you've had a lot of opportunities to, to do things with custom, custom light fixtures. Want to talk about that?
[00:06:52] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think early on I learned as well that there's many layers to when we say custom lighting. Right. There's what we just talked about with Prudential where there's standard products that we're modifying, and we learned that word modified so it doesn't scare a client as well with, oh, my God, that's going to blow the budget. Right. So there's a layer to that that's custom. Even though we're modifying standard products. But then there's, of course, the pure custom, where we're, you know, whether we're working with the architect or we're just coming up with a napkin sketch in our head, whatever is inspired by the project or the story that we're working on, you know, take it from that cartoon sketch all the way through shop drawings to the field, and then there's kind of another layer to that, which is pure themed fixtures.
Day one here at LDA was working on Disney projects, so I've probably done 15, whether it's a hotel or a retail dining and experience project for them just through the years. And that's kind of a whole other layer because every project has a story, every project inspiration to create those custom fixtures. But when there's an actual character or movie or ip that you're referring to, it's kind of a different path that you take through that custom process. But one of my first projects was Beverly Hills triangle, so you might remember this. So that was, even though it was a master planned street lighting project, it was actually a custom project as well, because there were these poles that this was before they had modular poles and nodes and things that everybody was putting on the poles. So I remember even just trying to, like, how can we make this unique? How can we make this different? And then finishes, finishes is, of course, layered into all these things as well. Like we talked about, how do we make these holes sparkle during the day? So we actually used car paint to apply the paint to those products, working with Salux so that you actually kind of had that little sparkle that you get in a car, which now is not a big deal, right? 25 years later, they have a million finishes like that. But the research that goes into custom products as well is the super fun part for me, too, because it's a little different. It's different than just like our more standard commercial type projects.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: I used to think in school that maybe I wanted to end up in product development, and I don't think I do anymore. But talk to me more about the research, and, I don't know, give me some examples of that kind of research that you've done on custom projects.
[00:09:14] Speaker C: Well, one example is this is I can probably talk a whole other segment just on Disney and how each of those different projects goes, because those are some interesting stories. But even projects that have lanterns, like a lantern, you know, we go to certain catalogs, we look through them. But when you're doing a custom lantern, the amount of detail that goes into it, right. It's the armature. It's the backplate. Is there an emblem on it? You know, what, what are we introducing and what makes this project special that we're going to introduce on this lantern? So even just like, I swear, my first five years, I feel like I've, so I still do this. We just came back from a family vacation, three weeks in Europe, and I swear, half my photos are still like the little lanterns that we all see throughout the little alleys of Europe or the glass in Venice or all these nary poles you see all throughout Italy. So, you know, I had a project in Portugal. I had another project in Spain. I had one in Santa Barbara. There was a Disney project I was working on that was lantern. So I feel like my first five years, I feel like I was so in the lantern world. And just how all the little details that go into that are really fun, but that takes research. It takes, and it's fun research. Back then, it was ordering a bunch of books or going to the local bookstore to find, you know, certain books on researching Spain and details on, you know, like a rivet on the door, things that we could kind of introduce to it. Now, of course, it's a lot easier. We can just Amazon it or Google something. But going to the places, too, to get that inspiration, I think is important. You don't want to just like, you know, you have to experience these things, too. And which, that's the color of the glass or the, you know, how the. Yes, we know. We want it to be warm. I, but, you know, is it a seated glass? Is it a clear glass? And you just have to play with all those things. And obviously, as we all know, with mock ups that we want to do in any project, material samples are so important with that. Just like, I mean, my office is full of just like an interior designer full of random materials and glass samples and all that stuff just so we can play with it and what's going to work for this project. But, yeah, that's just, that's one layer to it. But Disney is, the Disney projects are another story because those each have their own kind of little different way that we've had to research them.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Well, I was going to say before we go there, how has 3d printing changed or has it changed like how you're, you talked about all the material samples and stuff. Like, is that another way that you're looking at what it's going to look like?
[00:11:33] Speaker C: Yeah, I'd say the past, especially past few years, that's something that whether we're doing, we have a 3d printer in house that's really, really slow because it's not as high quality as some of the others. But yeah, I mean, I literally have one right here from. This is a 3d print of this little rosette detail that we're doing for a project. So just, you know, obviously material, it doesn't matter, but just like how much texture we want in something or how deep we want the, you know, the actual pills to go and things like that and how the light's going to catch it, that it's definitely a help in that because otherwise we're, you know, you're able to foolproof more things. I think through that, through testing with 3d printing, it's been super helpful.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Kelly, you're talking a lot about designing the fixtures from scratch. I wonder, how often are you also working in the other way? Wherever the interior designer comes to you and says, this is what I want, I've designed it all now. Make it work.
[00:12:25] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say that that's probably the majority, right? I mean, when we're designing pure custom, it's. It's a handful over the hundreds. I don't even know how many projects at this point in my, my elder years.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Stop it.
[00:12:41] Speaker C: But no, I'd say that's the majority. Especially because I do a lot of hospitality too. Right. So it's a. It's usually a partnership. I'd say the majority of the time they're coming to us. Well, I got this idea. Or we want the fixture to look like this. How should we light it? And then sometimes, especially if it's someone that we worked with a lot, we're also making material suggestions. But as you guys know, every project's different. It depends on the interior designer too. Some of them have such a great strong vision and that's the feature of the project. And we're there to make sure that the lamping and the controls is right and that everything else around the space is complementing it. But when we're doing the pure art custom design, that's definitely the minority of the projects.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: A key to the making it work also is remembering that these fixtures typically aren't providing the light in the space. So, you know, we had a question just recently. There's this sort of branch fixture with these globes, and somebody had screwed in a couple of different retrofit led lamps and they. They wanted. I don't know, it was all this stuff. They wanted 3500 kelvin because it was healthcare and that was their color, temperature and things. And they wanted a frosted lamp because they didn't like the clear ones, but it's this clear glass chandelier. And so the answer was just, hey, you know what? Just dim that down.
We don't need it to provide light in this space. You just want to see that there's light in that globe. You don't really need it to do anything.
[00:14:13] Speaker C: It's not the main function of the space. Yeah.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:16] Speaker C: So.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Well, and I think, you know, you brought up, Kelly, that then coordination. Right. With the interior designer. And sometimes it just becomes your responsibility as a lighting designer to help them pick the light, the light engine, whether it's that lamp that Lisa was just talking about or an led array and the controls associated. Right. I've also experienced that some of these folks need help realizing that you have to be able to change it and repair it and fix it or maybe even install it without 5 million parts and pieces. Have you experienced, like, a path or. Obviously, it's. It's different when you're working with somebody that you've worked with a lot. Right. And you kind of get that background. But what would you tell a new designer coming in on how to deal with these elements and how to explain it to either an interior designer and or an owner as to how the process kind of works?
[00:15:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I think just like we do with architectural lighting, I think a good partner of a decorative manufacturer is important because they're the ones building it and making it, and they're the experts in it. And, yes, there's things that we can kind of help guide. And this was our experience on this project. But, I mean, these guys breathe it every day. And we've, I think throughout the years, whether it's a client brought us to a certain decor manufacturer, and we still continue to work with them. Or if it's one we found on our own, we've worked with a great handful of custom and decorative lighting manufacturers that are key in that because, you know, we can sketch it, we can add some details to it, and, you know, this is what we do with our younger designers as well. Like, this is the process that we take you through. And then, and then this is what a shop drawing looks like of a custom fixture, though. I mean, it's like this one simple looking chandelier could be a 50 page shop drawing package with all the details that go into it. And especially when you're working with certain clients that have very strict guidelines. Like a lot of the theming projects we work on, there's overhead safety, there's welding standards and all these things that not just impact how the fixture is designed and bring in all these extra engineers, but also really impact the budget. So we might think that this grand thing is $50,000, which is still crazy expensive. And then by the time you get all these standards added on that are unnecessary for the beauty and the look of the fixture. But it's important to the client for their code and their personal standards, it becomes double the price. So those are things that we have to know early on as well. And sometimes it changes in the middle of a project. We've been working on one of our firm's biggest projects to date, that's opening next year. It's a huge theming project. They changed the standards in the middle of the project. So it really impacted the budget. And that's a project where we designed everything. We designed all the custom pulls, the interior fixtures, whether it's a decorative chandelier, whether it's a pure themed fixture. So, you know, every little component in this project. And it was. It mostly impacted the polls, anything that was overhead, obviously. But it was a major shift and a big impact to the budget. So my first question was that can't come out of the lighting budget.
Whose budget is this coming out of? So that was an interesting process.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: I know something that comes up a lot with custom products is keeping it in the project. How do you keep that important element in?
[00:17:46] Speaker C: Yeah, it depends on what it is. It's easier if it's tied to an IP or if it's the main star of the show. Right. And then like anything else, it's okay. You shop it around. Right? Like, okay, this is our design. And I think that's what's interesting. And many people have probably experienced, whether it's a. A small chandelier or if it's a hundred foot crazy, you know, light sculpture or something, you're going to see such a wider range of prices. And that's what's interesting too, is it's. It's kind of hard to really dig in and see. Is it apples to apples? Right. Because it's still a big concept. So what happens when you start to. To dig into those details? You know, somebody might say it costs, oh, well, this is so affordable. But then by the time you go through the process, it was the same prices, the more expensive people to begin with. So, yeah, it's all over the map. But I think, you know, it's a big thing now, too. And I'm thinking of some of our more like outdoor projects where sometimes those, those are the ones that seem to get sacrificed sometimes. Like if we have these things. I'm thinking of a certain, like, landscape or park project that we have where we have these fun little, almost like light sculpture moments throughout. And that was the first to get sacrificed in the budget because it was a fun lighting idea. It wasn't, you know, the main driver and it was, it was something to enhance the experience at night. But they're like, ah, you know, that's, sorry, it's, it's too expensive. And that was the first to go. So those are the things that you're the only one that's going to miss it. But it's, it's still a bummer when that, when that happens, of course. But most of the time when we're involved because like I said, it's, it's a minority of the projects we're really designing these pure custom pieces. It's such an important part of the project that I'd say most of the time they do get in. But you remember the ones that like, oh, that would've been really cool. Remember those ones that go away?
[00:19:30] Speaker A: And Kelly, when you're talking about pricing and getting multiple pricing elements, you're doing that, right? You're not asking, is this before contractors involved? Or like, how does that work?
[00:19:41] Speaker C: We're doing it as early as possible. We're trying to, before a contract or anybody else gets involved, we're doing it. So if we know that we're going to be designing these fixtures, it's something that we have to even build into our proposal and feed and know that it's going to take time because we have to do not just the design of it and the coordination, but we have to do all that extra legwork to make sure that the right person is going to be on the project. Usually in these cases, we have really great owner's reps or really great clients, and then we make that introduction and they kind of help run with it. But we're making that initial introduction and usually there's, you know, we try to go to two or three, and that depends on the materials, right. We have to, is it a glass fixture, is it an iron fixture? You know, is it a banana leaf material that we need to use? So we need to go to, you know, there's certain manufacturers that we know we need to go to that excel in specific materials and scales and sizes. And then there's the lucky unicorns that can pretty much do everything. Those are, there's fewer of those, of course, but those are the really great ones to work with, because they. They can work in any medium, which is nice.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it feels like they're. There are fewer than there used to be, too, that companies are. It's not lucrative or something. There's some reason nobody's doing custom anymore.
[00:20:58] Speaker C: Yeah, they're definitely fewer than there used to be. And it makes me think, you know, so Aulani is one of our Disney projects that we, you know what? We finished it like ten, 2011 it opened. But again, that was a project where we designed every. Besides, like the lamps and the guest rooms. Right. We designed every custom fixture on that project from the grand scale, everything in the lobby to the outdoor custom fixtures. And that was a super fun project because there was tons of research because that was all about how did the ancient Hawaiians make light and how can we turn these into light fixtures. It was also a sensitive project for Disney because they were bringing Disney to Hawaii and it wasn't about Mickey Mouse coming to Hawaii. It was about Disney respecting the culture of Hawaii. And, you know, the first time that they'd been away from a theme park, opening a project. So there was a lot of attention on the project, but there was great research that went into it. We did tons of mock ups on that job. Like, how do we recreate gourds and calabash bowls and turn them into lights? And even the custom fire. They're not tiki torches because tiki torches are polynesian. They're not hawaiian. So we called them kukui nut torches because the ancient Hawaiians would actually take kukui nuts and burn the oil. And that's how they created light. So we found one manufacturer that was in Las Vegas that basically did all those fixtures for us, which was amazing because with the exception of a large scale chandeliers that was another manufacturer. But all the outdoor, all the kind of everything in that language was done by one manufacturer in Las Vegas, which was great because that's where we went for all of our mock ups. And we did tons of mock ups. And fast forward to two years after the project opened and they're gone. They don't exist anymore. So even today, a lot of these people that I worked on a project with, we work on, we still talk to. It's been interesting because now we had to find other people to. Things get broken or, you know, certain things need to be recreated. And it's been, you know, it's a Disney project, so there's kids doing all kinds of things on these fixtures, mine included, when she's been there. And it's been interesting to try to recreate these things. But thankfully, that was a big learning lesson on that project, too, as we documented as much as possible. Even just the photos from the, from the mock ups and taking pictures of things when they're lit and not lit, the materials and seeing what they're supposed to look like before, before they're even lit helped because Disney still comes to us, basically to look for certain materials that were used. Because if they need to recreate, it's something that they kind of have to start from scratch now, rather than being able to go, you know, to a certain manufacturer that's been open for 20, 30, 40 years. So those are the challenges, especially when it's a long term client. You want it to still work. You want it to, you know, you want to be able to go back a lot of these projects, you want them to feel timeless, so you go back and you want it to still look the same as when it opens. So. So even though the project a long time ago, we're still trying to help them with that stuff.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: So it's funny, you, you mentioned a problem with a manufacturer that's no longer in business. We have a restaurant that we had a custom fixture, and the custom manufacturer's still in business, and we needed a new shade, so. Well, we don't have any record of what that is or when it was or anything like that. And unfortunately, in our situation, all we did was help the interior designer with lighting and driver. I think it comes back to previous statement where there's different scales of where we, as lighting designers get involved, and then there's different scales of custom as well. And the funny thing is, in the end, when it doesn't work four years later, I've found that they don't call the interior designer, they call the lighting designer because it's a light.
[00:24:36] Speaker C: Exactly. You're absolutely right. Like every restaurant, every hotel, we get so many calls all the time about where it's probably a sconce that we don't even have to dig into the submittals or something for because same thing we just made sure we could control and that the light was the right color temperature.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Yeah. You didn't even specify it.
[00:24:57] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Well, and then the changing of the replacement lamp industry. Right. The part numbers change so often some of all of our projects, right, are getting in that eight to ten year range where the lamps are finally failing. And now it's like, oh, yeah, I need a new one. Oh, man. Like, it's back to this concept of group relamping. Wait, wait. Group prelamping of leds?
[00:25:24] Speaker C: Yep. No, that's good. I have a great example of that. A project that just opened recently was a local designer. We do a lot of projects with this particular interior designer and the owner of these restaurants. Great partners. They're so fun. These projects are super awesome. But very simple design where we had all these kind of custom rattan shades made in Mexico with this mexican artist. That is incredible that we've done a lot of projects with. Supposed to be the simplest thing in the world, but there's probably, like, 200 of these fixtures in the space, and it was just supposed to be a very simple little amber filament Edison bulb. Right. That we all know. I cannot even tell you how many times during the very short course of that project that that lamp changed specifications. And that's when we had a good partnership with our national account distributor, too. That helps us on all these projects. And I can't even tell you, it must have been ten different lamp specs that we went through on this project. And then we finally found one that was going to be available close to opening time. Fast forward to six months later. They have a few lamps out. That lamp doesn't exist anymore. And that's something that seems so simple, but it's just, you know, whether it's the wattage or the, you know, the lamp size or, it's just. It's pretty. That's a frustrating part. And then we have, you know, projects like the cheesecake factory that we've worked with for, gosh, 20 plus years. Now, Lindsey and I were just there last night because of this very issue. Not just the downlights, but the decorative fixtures are constantly being changed. And then, you know, of course, they have to deal with states that discontinue lamps, which they've been dealing with for years, of course, here in California. And then, you know, trickled down to all the other states. But that is because there are longstanding client. You know, it doesn't matter if it's a one time client or a long time client. It's just like, we want it to work, and we want it to still look like it's supposed to look. So we were just there last night testing some new lamps, and it's never ending.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: You know, Kelly, you.
I always thought the ILd should do a ten year award. So ten years later, you go take new photos. The AIA here in Chicago has started to do that. You know, I think it'd be great, right? Like that testament to great design is that it still looks the same ten years later. Right. You have to approve. The photos are new and all those things, but yeah, I mean, it's amazing. I still think it's funny. Oh, yeah. The dimmer panel is 22 years old. It still works.
[00:27:54] Speaker C: Yeah, it still works. Yeah.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: I'm not going to change it. It still works. Wait, I got a socket. Yeah. I just want to buy a new lamp for that. Oh, yeah, they don't make those anymore.
[00:28:04] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I think that. And I say that all the time, especially whether it's one of these Disney projects or another hotel or something. We go back and visit, you know, there's always going to be things that we notice, like, oh, that lamps out or, oh, they didn't do that. But it's. As long as it feels like it's supposed to, to me, that's what's important. And it's, you know, I don't think any of us are just doing the project and getting the photos and walking away. Right. Like we wanted to because we're designing for the people. We want the people to experience the same whether it's opening day or ten years down the line. So I think that's a great idea.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: The other thing that came to mind as you were talking is to ask you both, have you found a Gu nine bulb that dimsden, it seems like Gu nine s. Those little tiny things are some of our interior designers favorite light bulbs.
[00:28:53] Speaker C: We were just talking about that last night because we have these tiny, like, in the older designs of these restaurants, they have these little booth ends. You guys, if you ever been. Tons of them. Tons of these little lamps. So we were just talking about that last night, like, finding an led replacement for that. But dimms, we haven't found one. We're like, oh, let's just put an led tape light in. Right. But that's, of course, not an easy answer because where does the driver go when they're in the booth ends? So just all those, the rabbit holes that we go down with. With all these things. So, yes, if I find one, I will share it with you guys.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: Yeah. But I think it just proves a point that there is such that come back to the lighting matters and that the folks that are looking at that light fixture that happens to have that Gu nine bulb is looking at it because of what it looks like, not how it performs or, or illuminate. And you have to have a lighting designer involved to get to that next level of cool. It looks great, but how it actually produces light is a very big challenge, and that's where we all make our livings and stuff. But that's why you need a lighting designer, why lighting is so important.
[00:30:04] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Same even with whether, it doesn't even matter if it's a decorative fixture, custom, even a downlight. We just had this conversation with a YDe, a different client that has a lot of restaurants. The other day they were doing a remodel, and usually they involve us in it. You know, one of our designers was like, gosh, you know, they just put in all these decorative fixtures and they put them underneath the table light. So now the table lights are blocked and they're like, oh, we can figure that out. We'll just make sure we move it. But then they did that. But then they also added some fixtures, but they're mixing inner girl led with these older Led Mr. Sixteen s. And it's just like, no, it's not that simple. Right. So, yes, I think that's the first thing I said. I'm like, well, that's why they have us. That's, you know, why, why aren't they going? Why on this one project are they not? And it costs them more money to fix all those things. So, you know, then I probably would have just to get some of our simple consultation on that. So. Absolutely. There's so many different things that can happen with that. That's our value. Right. And that's the value we bring to projects.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: There's a story to be told there somewhere on the, you know, the cash positive proposition of bringing a lighting designer in versus having to fix things or go back and do them again. I'm sure we've all worked on projects, working on a residence right now. Owner, love the house, hates the lighting. I don't know if it was the interior designer or the contractor, whoever, who sold them the end path, but it's drywall everywhere. It's a house changing that is going to be a ton of money. What would have it cost you to bring in a light? Any light, any iald lighting designer.
[00:31:40] Speaker C: Yep. Yep.
[00:31:42] Speaker A: To point you in the right direction. And, and then you could at least make the decisions that are appropriate. You may have still made that decision, but you wouldn't be yelling at the additional cost to change it now.
[00:31:54] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: It's just that it would have been an informed decision. Right. Whatever decision you made, if you had a lighting designer involved, then you're making an informed decision.
[00:32:03] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, we don't do a ton of residential because I joke that when we do, they're like small hotels here in Beverly Hills. Or something. But there was a certain real housewife. So any Bravo fans? That her husband called me and basically said, I'm in the biggest trouble with her because my only job was lights and sound on this, you know, ridiculous $50 million house. And it was the same thing. So, you know, I went down there and it was, well, you could have done this. You could have done that. But then it becomes like a hierarchy, right? Like, these are the things that are. Don't require you to take out your ceilings or to completely tear out your millwork, right? These are simple little. You can change the color temperature. We can add this, or we can do that. But it's. Yes. When it came time to build our next house, that's how they learned that they needed to hire us, at least. But lessons learned all over the place with some of these things. But, yeah, it's just making an informed decision. And, you know, whatever path they choose, at least they have the option.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Well, and I feel like that happens a lot where once you use a designer, a lighting designer, you kind of don't go back. Right. You realize the value, and now you're like, whoa. I mean, just. It's amazing how Lisa and I have talked a lot about. And our podcasters have, or our guests have all talked about costs of things, and we've talked a little bit about managing the cost of custom fixtures and finding those kinds of elements. But what a lighting designer brings to make sure that you actually get what you wanted at the right price is something, too. And that extends to dealing with custom fixtures beyond just the look of them. Right. Lisa, you were talking a little bit about how that one light fixture just needed to glow to look nice. But I would guess that there are some installations or some situations where you could prove that it's actually producing the light for the space. And something else would have been more expensive.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Actually, I have a favorite custom story. The concept was this UFO. Actually, the concept boards were like from the Jetsons and Star Trek. Anyway, it was such a fun office fit out, but the architect came to us with a fixture that they had in mind that looked like a UFO, and it barely glowed. And it cost $3,500 each. And we were able to give them to find an RLM fixture, modify it so it looked more like a UFO, as if we all know what UFO's look like. Only cost $900 per fixture. Save the project 250,000, you know, so.
[00:34:34] Speaker C: There you go, saving the day. That's always good, too.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: I know. I wish that was my fee on that job. But.
[00:34:42] Speaker C: Next time.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Lighting'S worth it.
[00:34:46] Speaker C: It is. But no, that's true, because you. And that's what goes back to, like, you know, the modified custom writer. We have this catalog of all these architectural fixtures. Interior designers and architects. You know, they have a different encyclopedia and, you know, Rolodex in their brain of all these things. So that's a great tool to use, too, because look at, we can simplify this in a lot of ways, too, and it doesn't always have to break the bank. I think that's what, you know, a lot of owners like, oh, custom. But it's. It doesn't have to be like, if you know the right. I think that's where pairing up with the right manufacturer is important, too, because this is something. Oh, well, we did this on a project. It's, you know, because it's usually like, oh, it's a new mold. It's all these things. Right. That were the tooling that people are paying for. But if you go to the right manufacturer that's done something similar to it before, you're already saving so much there. So it's that. It's that knowledge as well, too, and making sure that, you know, you're doing the right peering as well. And, you know, who's. Who's the best for that project for cost, too, because, you know, that's not. None of us are making a percentage on this. So it's just like we want the best value for the best result for anything, whether it's the architectural package or the decorative. So. Oh, another fun one. We can talk about another. I'm trying to think of all these. Okay, talking about material. That's interesting, too. Our most recent project for Disney that just opened in the Tokyo, which was fun because I worked on Tokyo Disneyland hotel maybe 1215 years ago. And so this is their newer hotel that's all princess themed, and it's adjacent to the new fantasy Springs area that they just opened in the theme park. But that was very interesting because it was a very different kind of process that we went through on this project compared to what we did with the exact same client and owner. Because it's a partnership between OLC over in Japan and Disney. So it's like a 50 50 partnership, which was how it was before, too. But this time it was different in the certain materials that they wanted to use. There was new rules that they had in place where, you know, architecturally speaking, we couldn't do any up lights. They didn't want any up lights. So we had to if we wanted any uplights in the facade, we had to build them into the column or almost make shrouds if we wanted any uplighting effects. So we had to get a little creative with some of that. But when it came to the decorative fixtures, we had all the interior and exterior, we had all these. It was all flowers. So many different sizes of flowers or wisteria kind of coming off columns. Which glass is the best for the lighting and for the, you know, the tiny little sizes that we were doing on it. They said no glass, not just because of budget, but because of overhead safety and all these other rules. Had to be acrylic. Well, we've all worked with acrylic, and no, like, when you start to shape it and make little flower shapes and all these things, we didn't want it to look inexpensive. So, thankfully, with both us, because of projects, we had other projects we done in China, and because of Disney's relationship with certain ones, we found the right vendor. But same thing. It was during COVID where a lot of these material samples started being shipped around. But the number of iterations that they had to do for, not just to get the form of the acrylic, for all these flowers and little tiny flower sizes, but the pastels, it was all in various pastels. Getting the right color and getting the right shape was a challenge, but they did it, and it looks great. I was really impressed with it because that was something that made us very nervous where we're like, well, this obviously has to be glass for all these fixtures. And they said, no, no, cannot be. So we had to get creative there. But that's where, thank God, this manufacturer could, could make it work. But it took them many, many sample iterations to do it. I'd say that was probably a two year process to get it right. But luckily, the construction has slowed down because of COVID So we could have that time. We don't usually have that, you know, grace of time.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: Don't have that long. Yeah.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: To get all those samples, Kelly, in those situations. So you're talking about lots of little pieces that have to all get put together. Obviously, a budget associated with the product. How do you help the client and contractors understand the value of their costs to do the thing you're talking about? Okay, from manufacturer a, here's the cost of a thing. But then they got to put it all together. I mean, they got to receive it and unbox it. And I'm also kind of curious, like, how many of the manufacturers that you work with put it together right. Maybe just don't do the electrical connection. I don't know. You're working on stuff in the upper echelons of the custom lighting world.
[00:39:20] Speaker C: Yeah, most of them do once, and it's an extra cost to the owner, but it's important that they have onsite, whether it's on site supervision or on site assemblers that help with that. And I think the value to that is we tell the contractors, you don't want to be responsible for breaking this, and we tell the owners, you don't want anybody, you want the manufacturers to be there to make sure that it goes together correctly, because this is too important of a piece. So it's 90% of the time, probably that happens when they are. When the contractors are responsible. I can only think of one case where they broke some pretty large scale fixtures, and that was, luckily we didn't have to get involved in those conversations, but that's. I use that story to tell them why they don't want to be in that situation. Yeah, that was an interesting one because it was a baristol. Printed is actually an animation that was printed on Varicell and they ripped it, and it took a long time to remake. So that was a challenge.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: Is it really just a value that you see contractors kind of holding until there's a shop drawing and then they're allowed to refine their installation cost or, you know, depending on the job. Right. Or is it. It is what it is, and they have to take a guess. And how do you address that?
[00:40:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I think a lot of times they just assume whether it's a simple ff and e, even if it's something we're designing, they'll just put in the ff and e package and treat it that way, or we just tell them early on, like, we try to involve them in the process. We, you know, we want them to feel like, you know, they're part of that process as well, just so they know. So there are limit surprises because we want them to want it to turn out good, too, of course. So, yeah, I think we share the shop drawings with them, even if they're not the ones purchasing the fixture. And sometimes we ask, you know, a lot of times we'll get their feedback on, you know, they're like, well, how does this go together? Why don't they only have, you know, two aircraft cables on this? There's no way that's going to work. So sometimes it's. It's actually, you know, oftentimes it's helpful to get them involved, too. Because they're the ones that, even if whether they are, aren't responsible for putting in, they, you know, they're the ones that do it every day, so try to get their feedback, too.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: And how much pushback do you end up having to put on the custom fixture manufacturers too, to think about how it gets installed? I guess my initial reaction in all of this was that these are folks that deal with this every day, so they should understand. Okay, well, like you said, it should have more than two aircraft cables. I mean, how often are you saying that like, you or the contractor are actually going back to the custom folks to say you didn't think about how this was actually going to get installed at all? Like, it looks beautiful, but how are you going to actually assemble it?
[00:42:05] Speaker C: It happens, but luckily not often. So when they do, it's always been a positive reaction, I think from their point to be like, okay, well, we'll make it work. Let's make it work, because I think they're a lot more adaptable than maybe more standard manufacturers would be. Right. Because they're used to having to make these adjustments all the time. It gets a little dicey, of course, if it's a, when it's shipped to the field and the certain owner or contractor didn't want their assistance in the field, that it gets a little dicier then. So then it becomes one of those situations where we, LDa, are asking our manufacturer friends for a favor to please help solve this problem. But they always do. I can't think of a case where they haven't because, you know, the ones that we still work with that are still around are really great and they do such amazing work that, you know, they've done so many projects with us at this point there, it's just another good partner at the end of the day.
[00:42:57] Speaker B: So I think it's the difference between a custom lighting manufacturer who is a lighting manufacturer and they do custom versus, you know, a fabricator or somebody who doesn't really know lighting building a custom fixture for you.
[00:43:11] Speaker C: Yeah. And a lot of them are, you know, even if they're engineers or, you know, business people, at the end of the day, they, they care about the art of it, too. They care about, you know, what it looks like. And, you know, so they can show it off as well in our portfolio. But they do a lot. I think that's the biggest thing, too, is they take a lot of risk because when we bring them into a project, they're not getting paid in the beginning. Right. So there's some do more than others, but some of them do these beautiful renderings and beautiful shop drawings that I think they know that they're not guaranteed to get the project, and we'll do what we can to try to get them on the project, but, you know, we only have so much control. But they know, I think it's just like any of us, right? Sometimes you have to put a little bit of marketing effort into something to get the project or things like that. So I think that's the. They try to show their value through that. You know, like, yes, we're more expensive than manufacturer. See that? Somebody else brought them to the table, but look what we can create and look what we can do. So that's an interesting part of what they do as well.
[00:44:08] Speaker A: What is your go to recommendation? When you're working with a new interior designer and they start talking about custom light fixtures? Do you have your, what are your couple of recommendations or a couple of things you say, hey, as you're thinking about this, yeah.
[00:44:24] Speaker C: I think the first thing is if they, you know, what's, what's inspiring them to. Why is this important? Where is it going? What is the scale and what's the material? Because that, starting there, it's already kind of helping us think, okay, who's the best manufacturer to partner you up with for this? Or, you know, okay, like five different people. That would be great for this. But this project is in this country. These guys work here all the time. You know, stuff like that. I think it's sometimes getting them to take a step back. Does it have to be custom? Doesn't always have to be custom. You know, especially if I'm thinking of certain, like, this retail that's in a theme park that we've worked on. And it was a very complex design for something that didn't have to be so complex. There was already a lot going on in the space, but we, of course, didn't want to insult the design. So we, you know, we kind of. Let's take a step back. You know, we have all these other things going on in here that, you know, kind of we want for the lighting, we want to be the focus. What if we did, you know, something like this instead? And budget kind of drove that as well in that particular case. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's just starting there, like, what's the most appropriate for the project? And I especially materials. I keep going back to materials because it's so important knowing early on what does it want to be? And is it all the different mediums that we work in. It's important to know that early on. I wish every project was like that, too, but it's not.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: Fun. Every project's not fun.
[00:45:52] Speaker C: Well, every project can be fun, but it's like getting to create these things. Right? That's the fun part. There's some of these that you see, like these sketches that you did, and then it's like, even when we did the Aulani project, like, the chandelier that we designed is on a mug and a cup. And I remember being like, oh, my God. A light that we designed is on it, that we drew is on their marketing material. I thought that was pretty cool. That is. That is.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: I remember seeing that once, too. Yeah. And I just. It's super fun to take the literal napkin sketch and hold it up to the project photo at the end and say, oh, wow, look at that.
[00:46:29] Speaker C: It's just like our renderings, right? Like, you do a rendering and you're like, oh, my God. Hey, we either guessed really well, or, oh, look at how good we are. We might have perfect.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: You know, what you're doing. It's not a guess.
[00:46:43] Speaker C: It's educated sometimes at the end of the day, but no, it's not a guess. Definitely not a guest. It's all purposeful.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: Well, this is really great, Kelly. Thank you for taking a little time to share about custom fixtures, and we went to a couple other great topics, which I think is part of why we wanted to put this podcast together.
[00:47:03] Speaker C: Yeah. Congratulations on the podcast, guys. It's exciting. So happy to be a part of it. Thank you.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been really fun. Good conversations. The same conversations that we all have together, you know, late night at a conference. But putting it, recording it, and putting it out there for other people to learn from, it's been really, really valuable. I think so. We also need to thank our sponsor again, prudential lighting. They are family run and wholeheartedly committed to delighting with light. Prudential lighting has been designing and manufacturing architectural fixtures in Los Angeles since 1955. Yes, they really are approaching their 70th anniversary. A small family business that has grown to be one great big family. And that's how I feel about them. Such nice people. Anyway, our flagship luminaire family is Bionic Pro, a complete series of seamless two, three, four, and five inch linear slot and perimeter fixtures with a continuous lens for no light leaks. And our true beam technology embedded in the lens provides industry best distributions efficiencies and light output.
[00:48:09] Speaker A: Boy. Satin Lambertion batwing. Okay. Yeah. Two wall washes flat and focal glow, perimeter room fill wall, grazing optics are all delivered from the same fixture with just a lens change. All right, I'm gonna veer off and ask a question. Fixture or luminaire?
[00:48:35] Speaker B: So it was drilled into set ku that it was a luminaire. And then when you're out there talking to the real people, it's about communication. So it turned into a fixture.
[00:48:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't think. I love the word luminaire, but I don't think I've used it, and I don't know how many years. It's just. Billy, go. I always use fixture.
[00:48:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Theater guy. We call them fixtures.
[00:48:57] Speaker C: Yeah, of course you do.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: Make notes of these advancements have led to faster lead times, easier installs, and greatly reduced callbacks. No light leak, and better performance. Prudential lighting is advancing and looking forward to our next 70 years. Please visit us@prulite.com or better yet, visit us in person at our New York showroom or plant showroom in Los Angeles.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: You said you were just there, right, Kelly?
[00:49:34] Speaker C: Yeah, we've taken our office there many times in the past, earlier this year, and then we think we had another one a couple years ago. So we like to do field trips. Nice.
Yeah, no, they have a great showroom. It's really. They've done a really great job with it, so. Yeah, well, they're always so hospitable.
[00:49:50] Speaker B: Thank you. Prudential. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you, Avi.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you. Y'all have a great day. Thank you so much.
[00:49:57] Speaker C: Thank you, guys. That was really fun. And rock chalk.
[00:49:59] Speaker A: Rock chalk.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: Rock chalk.
Lighting matters. As we wrap up, we want to reiterate how much we value your time, and we hope you found found it as much fun to listen to as we had creating it. Remember to like it, and share this content with your friends and colleagues.
[00:50:19] 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 more lights, for your next endeavor.
