Visual Merchandising and Store Design | VMSD.com

We shine a spotlight on the basic differences between the most-talked-about lighting options today.

By Steve Kaufman

It’s been a while since lighting a store meant simply installing enough bulbs in the ceiling so customers could find their way around and read the price tags. And even with all the conversation lately about the energy efficiency and technology of retail lighting, its main purpose is as a dramatic enhancement to drive sightlines, create mood and shadows, enliven merchandise presentations, uplight, downlight, wash walls and bathe corners.

“Lighting helps establish traffic patterns, mood and environment,” says Abigail Rosen Holmes of Los Angeles-based lighting consultancy Nyx Design. “And more than that, it helps create and reinforce brand identity.”

Holmes cites the freestanding Apple stores – like the one on Fifth Avenue in New York – that are brightly and evenly lit, contributing to the brand’s modern identity and to the store’s role as an entertainment destination. “It encourages people to spend time in the store even when they’re not purchasing anything,” she says.

“Light is invisible radiant energy,” adds lighting designer Stefan Graf of Illuminart (Ypsilanti, Mich.). “Different lights give stores different feelings and, ultimately, impact the brand image.”

Evolving technology has widened the options available to do all that, and some lamp types accomplish certain objectives better than others. Traditional incandescent bulbs are warm and best approximate daylight, so they tend to have the best color rendering – which is important if you’re selling apparel and want to make sure the customer can distinguish the black sweater from the navy blue. And because of the pure light they emit, they’re better sources for dressing rooms and makeup areas. But they’re also hugely inefficient and have short lamp lives.

Fluorescent tubes produce a soft, ambient glow and were the lamp of choice for most big-box retailers for years. But they emit a general spread of light that’s not particularly exciting. Designers don’t like the look of the tubes in the ceilings, especially coupled with the bulky ballasts required to ignite the arc discharge. Fluorescent tubes lose whiteness and flicker as they get old. And they’re plagued with issues of disposability, due to the toxic mercury in the tubes.