In class yesterday one of my students, thinking about a project she had recently completed, asked, “What’s the best light for a hair salon?” \u00a0I’m certain she was hoping I would tell her exactly what lamp technology and\/or lamp style to use. \u00a0Of course, it’s not that simple.<\/p>\n
So the class took a detour to talk about the important aspects of light in a hair salon. \u00a0We narrowed it down to two critical considerations – intensity and color rendering. \u00a0Intensity is important because the stylist needs to be able to see the details of a head of black hair as well as a head of blonde hair. \u00a0Intensity is relatively easy to achieve, and the designer has a wide range of lamp technologies, lamp shapes, and fixture types to choose from. \u00a0Finally, everyone intuitively understands how intensity affects vision. \u00a0If there’s not enough light one can’t see well enough to work.<\/p>\n
Color Rendering is more complicated. \u00a0All of my students had heard of color rendering, but few of them understood its meaning or use. \u00a0Color rendering is the ability of a light source to enable us to see object colors. \u00a0For instance, a light source that produced no red light would do a terrible job of allowing us to judge red apples and we would say it has poor color rendering. \u00a0Color rendering is measured on the Color Rendering Index (CRI) which compares the light source being tested to incandescent light (for warm light) or to daylight (for cool light). \u00a0The higher the result, on a range that peaks at 100, the more a light source simulates incandescent or daylight in enabling us to see the colors of illuminated objects.<\/p>\n
The best light source, then, is one that produces the desired intensity and has a high CRI. \u00a0Of course, there’s much, much more to color rendering and to the topic of color in light. \u00a0The color chapter in Designing Light<\/em> is about 40 pages, and the IES DG-1 Color and Illumination<\/em> looks like it will be about 100 pages. \u00a0It’s critical that lighting designers understand color because it has such a strong affect on people. \u00a0Color rendering is just one aspect. \u00a0Color also affects things such as our impressions and perception of a space, circadian rhythms, visual acuity, and the interior designer’s color palette. \u00a0Those are topics for another post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"