Independent vs Integrated Lighting Design: Which Model Delivers More Creativity and Control?

Independent or not independent, what is the better model for producing true creativity and delivering the best creativity and service in lighting design?

I come from a design and independent design background through my work as an M&E engineer and then again through my work in lighting consultancy in London. Distributers were looked down on as salespeople, and suppliers who designed, were just trying to sell product. Like everything there is some truth to that, but with us there wasn’t, we genuinely wanted to create better lit environments. In the design to supply model my Dad created, he would often tell clients to take out lighting or walk away from a sale if he felt our vision differed.

When I returned home to our family business in 2010, I struggled with the design to supply model. As a Chartered Engineer with a Masters in Lighting Design, I was dismissed as a salesperson, even though I often knew far more than the “consultants” I worked with.

The design, supply model we worked under was challenging also. It was impossible to put the time required into the design to do it right, as we were designing for free. We just didn’t have the resources to do this. We were also regularly doing designs where we would not get any product sale, but our design would be used. Or where the client would, because it was free, expect to jump to their every demand. We once, in desperation during the recession, went to twenty eight drawing revisions!

Also there were now a myriad of companies who had copied my fathers model and were calling themselves lighting designers but really just doing lighting calculations, to do just that, sell products. How could we show that that was not us? Our passion was design, being creative, doing things better. How could we make our passion our business? And how does that marry with our third-generation lighting supply company? We needed a different approach, and we needed to differentiate ourselves. And most importantly we needed time. The time to bring creativity and value on our projects, to do it right. We needed to charge for our design.

It was engrained in me that of course independent design was best. There was the full choice of products on the market, and there was peace of mind for the client that decisions were being made purely for design purposes. No ulterior motive to sell product. We toyed with lots of approaches, even setting up a “separate” consultancy WTWO Design, to set our design services apart from our regular business, Willie Duggan Lighting. We were trying to create that independence, that difference, and the associated trust in us, our design, our pricing and what we do. But it wasn’t us. We weren’t being transparently ourselves.

The more I worked in our business the more apparent it became of the advantages we had in designing and supplying. How both actually complimented each other.  We had the product, the paintbrush of the lighting designer, we had a warehouse full of it! We also had intimate relationships with a myriad of manufactures. We had three generations of relationships, we had visited their factories, knew their families, and knew their capabilities. We understood manufacturing, we had even done it ourselves over the years. And we also understood prices and price changes in real time, putting us in an ideal position to design with budgeting in mind.

When I was working in “independent lighting design consultancies”, I didn’t really understand the products, and I did not have access to them, besides a small store of samples. I didn’t have access to or a place to test products if I wanted to, so a lot of my design was based on fittings I had used before, or reps had showed, and educated guesses on how they would work. I wasn’t up to speed with latest lighting development like I was working directly with the manufacturers.

The possibilities with testing really stood out to me in terms of elevating the quality of what we can produce from a design perspective. Again, we didn’t have much capabilities here in the independent design world I had come from. While working from offices in the middle of Dublin or London is exciting, its just not possible to have sizeable testing or darkrooms. I addition we didn’t have any lighting technicians to wire and setup lighting for us. Whereas in Willie Duggan Lighting, we had our technical department that had been doing just that for over forty years.

My clarity crystallised on the advantages of the design and supply lighting design model on visiting Focus Lighting in New York City in 2017. Paul Gregorys design practice is one of the most decorated and respected lighting design consultancies in the States, and he was so open and accommodating in his time when we meet him in his Studio that Spring. Paul started in Theatre Lighting Design and then an Independent Architectural Lighting Design Practice. But moved to a design and supply model, as he was frustrated with how little control he had on the quality and delivery in the independent design model. Holding the specification and getting the procurement right was a real challenge, in addition to managing budget and meeting deadlines. This was all affecting the quality of the final project specification, and as a result lighting experience. He also saw the importance of testing, from his Theatre background, and their darkroom was impressive. He decided to make the change, to offer to supply in addition to his design. A more complete and better service.

The visit solidified my thinking, we can do it better, bring better overall experience and final lit experience to our clients through a design, supply model. It is our strength, not the weakness I had struggled with in my thinking for years. We had the product, relationships and space to play with and test with light, to finetune products for a particular application, to educate and inspire our clients as part of our process. To be genuinely creative. And we could manage all the links in the chain, from budgeting, to procurement and after sales care. Ensuring we’re created a lit experience that continued well into the future for our clients, and not just for handover.

We got working on building this new model. We renovated our space to create a 150 m² darkroom adjacent to new consultation and meeting rooms, and a new 30 seater auditorium and new Co-creative space. We utilised our 1400 m² premises to create a design studio, education and co-creative space, giving us the facilities to create genuine unique design, to educate as well as design in light and to experience its power. This is simply something that could not be done in the bigger cities.

Now, we’re a proud design to supply lighting design consultancy, we’re calling it the Integrated Lighting Design approach. We have won and been shortlisted for numerous awards, LIT, Darc and IES, and are changing how light is designed and understood, our new mission. While lighting product will always be part of our DNA, lighting consultancy has become a major part of what we’re about these days. Its where we believe we bring best impact and value. And our very intimate understanding of quality and pricing enables us to advise early on budgets and value engineer smartly where required. We can manage procurement, have better options with manufacturers in tailoring or adjusting products to meet specific performance requirements for specific applications. Our darkroom is a hive of activity, creativity and learning both for ourselves, our clients and our pupils of our courses. And we have made mocking up on site a key part of what we do also.

So how have we dealt with my perceived drawbacks with this model? Well, we charge for our design and its standalone, so clients can go elsewhere to purchase their product if they have preference. We would hope that throughout our design process with them they would come to trust our quality and pricing, but we issue all details should they have other particular preferences. The internet and transparency in pricing have also helped, our clients can check our prices in real time for additional reassurance. And in terms of ability to access full range of products, we have preferred ranges, purely because we have dealt with them for so long and know their quality and support. But we have widened our net, and should our clients wish to incorporate other brands we can often supply and are more than happy to design into our projects.

But most importantly, we are transparently us, and our history and wealth of knowledge from three generations permeates everything we do. Our father and grandfather, were always looking ahead, looking to do things better, and that’s our philosophy. We’re here to genuinely change our industry, do things better. And as light comes into the public consciousness in ways we’d never envisaged, through its foundational importance to all of natures health, and its ability to impact our emotions – our design, supply and education model, gives us the rounded perspective to lead this change.