FEATURES

2025 Top 10 Stories

2025 Top 10 Stories

Designing Lighting’s 2025 Top 10 Stories: A Year of Change, Leadership, and the Future of Light 2025 was a defining year for the lighting design industry. Economic uncertainty, consolidation, rapid technological change, and generational leadership shifts shaped the...

2025 Rep of the Year: Sesco Lighting

2025 Rep of the Year: Sesco Lighting

Every year, we select a manufacturer's representative agency that exemplifies excellence in our industry—not just in sales numbers, but in culture, innovation, and the kind of steady, principled growth that builds lasting legacies. For 2025, that honor goes to SESCO...

Shaping Light for Museums

Shaping Light for Museums

When lighting designers think of innovation, they often picture breakthroughs in LED sources, controls, or materials. At this year’s IES25 The Annual Conference in Anaheim, attention turned to an emerging professional and her pioneering work in optics. Kai-Di Peng, a...

2026 IESNYC Lumen Awards Open for Submissions

2026 IESNYC Lumen Awards Open for Submissions

2026 IESNYC Lumen Awards are Open for Submissions Deadline: January 9, 2026 The Lumen Awards were established in 1968 by the New York City Section of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IESNYC) and developed to publicly recognize excellence, professionalism,...

Designing in the Age of DIY

Designing in the Age of DIY

With today’s unprecedented access to media and online content, a question arises: How do professional designers compete with the rise of the DIY mindset? Designing in the DIY era I studied architecture and earned my BArch, but I built my career as a lighting designer,...

Musco Lighting buys Insane Impact

Musco Lighting buys Insane Impact

Oskaloosa-based Musco Lighting has purchased Insane Impact of Des Moines. Musco Lighting is one of Iowa’s keystone manufacturers, founded in 1976 by Joe Crookham and Myron Gordin, who modernized outdoor lighting for landmarks and sports facilities across the country,...

Light Beneath the Surface

Light Beneath the Surface

The Seattle Aquarium’s new Ocean Pavilion anchors the city’s revitalized waterfront.  Light Beneath the Surface explores the Ocean Pavilion lighting design behind the Seattle Aquarium’s newest landmark. Just steps from Pike Place Market and overlooking Elliott Bay,...