While much of the world is suffering unprecedented stress due to the global pandemic, the EARTH seems to be feeling less stress than she has in a while. We have been reducing energy usage and air pollution, and it looks like the Earth is breathing easier because of it. That's a silver lining, for sure!
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​It's also fitting, since this coming Wednesday, April 22 is the 50th Earth Day.

Several of our ELD team members celebrated our love for the planet by getting outside and planting gardens this weekend. Luckily, we were graced with gorgeous weather in the St. Louis area, so that felt like an Earth Day gift to us!

This is our eco-challenge to you: remember the connections, including your human ones. During this time of isolation, the connections are more important than ever. Start by connecting to the people you know and love - with a phone or video call - not just a text. After that, think about the electricity and the water you are using. How can you turn them off and use even a little less? This article has some good specific tips on how to save energy during the coronavirus pandemic. Next, go outside and take a deep breath. Take three deep breaths! Smell the fresh air. Now listen to the birds, the peepers, or the buzzing bees. What are the natural sounds you can hear today? It's springtime! How many colors can you see? The browns are being covered over with vibrant yellows and greens. In Missouri, the dogwoods and redbuds are blooming pink and white. Finally, go all-in...find a patch of ground, take off your shoes, and press your feet into this one-and-only planet of ours.
If the pandemic has you feeling tired and alone, take a break to connect with the beauty and mystery of our Earth.
Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. ~Rachel Carson
Connect.
Let us know how you are celebrating Earth Day this week!

This weekend was my husband's birthday - our family's first birthday celebration during the pandemic and stay-at-home order. We celebrated with sidewalk chalk messages and streamers and zoom and FaceTime. It turned out to be a pretty, lovely day.

Then today was Easter. For me, this Easter Sunday felt bleak and dark.
But today's church sermon had been pre-recorded at dawn. The online message began with just an orange horizon in the background and finished with full daylight. The scriptures were focused on beautiful analogies of light and darkness, which spoke to me as a lighting designer. (The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. John 1:5,9)

I have actually been thinking all week about how light can bring hope. Light can brighten dark spirits - besides just illuminating actual darkness. In this way, I suppose churches and lighting designers are doing some of the same work. So today, I'm dedicating this space to a few of the churches we have worked with in the past. We know you all miss having the ability to gather together. We are hoping with you for a quick return to your spaces filled with your people. Until then, stay home, stay safe, find your hope and be a light.

 Peace, friends.

Last week I read an article about dads being "stuck at home" during the pandemic, which reminded me of one of my past research projects. It was favorite project of mine. (Are you allowed to have favorite research projects? Or is it like having a favorite child?)

These are the questions which spawned the research:
Are you a woman? Are you a lighting designer? Are you a mother? Have you ever noticed women leaving the design profession after becoming mothers? Are they actually leaving? If so, why? Are they quitting work altogether, or are they going to work somewhere else? If they are working somewhere else, what makes that other profession more desirable than lighting design? What can we do to make lighting design a good place for women who are also mothers?

It has been incredible to see people step up and lead during this time. I mean, to be honest, just getting out of pajamas and taking a shower feels like an accomplishment for those of us who aren't leaving the house much...
Here are some of the things I have seen leaders doing this week:

• Washington University is providing surveys, Covid-19 information, and free webinars to the St. Louis AEC community.
• AGCMO has an almost endless list of FREE resources on their website - everything from safety plans to HR guidelines and summaries of the Federal Relief Bill. Check it out!
• bKL Architecture is using their firm's 3D printers to create face masks for Chicago-area hospitals!

Today I read a great blog post on the Convergence of Leadership and Community written by Orv Kimbrough, CEO of Midwest BankCentre. This phrase really jumped out at me:
During a crisis, you see the difference in management and leadership, they are both important, but are not the same. Leadership is about measured growth and management is about maintaining.  Leadership is about challenging and inspiring others to deliver their best and management is generally about accepting things as they are.

Wow. Which one are you? We do always need both. But what does leadership look like?
For leaders, this is the time to shine, to encourage, to inspire!
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What can we do to emerge from this better than we were last month or last year?
What can we do to grow and inspire growth in the people around us? And in the people we can influence, but who are currently NOT around (physically distanced from) us?
Use this time to show up and be your best. Just because no one is looking over your shoulder at your remote workplace doesn't mean they can't feel your commitment or enthusiasm. Be a leader! Put a smile on your face when you talk. Get on video chats so you can see your coworkers, and if nothing else, at least change out of those pajamas!

I've decided it's time to write, talk, and share. 
How are YOU doing? How is your team? What is your state of mind?
This is hard, but we are all in it together. We need each other.
Together, we will write this history. We will get through this. It will end. When it does, what do we want history to say about how we handled this pandemic?

Here's what Envision Lighting Design looks like today:
We have been working exclusively from home for three full work-weeks. We started on March 16, about a week earlier than our city/county mandates, because we have always been set up for remote work, and we wanted to do the right thing. Something new: our team has enjoyed daily video check-ins. We will keep some version of this in place in the future, because it allows us a more personal contact with our remote teammate(s). We will also do a better job with video product chats for our remote team! It has been great to meet with our reps and manufacturers in this way.
​We want to stay in touch with all of our partners, so contact us to book a virtual meeting, lunch-and-learn, or coffee. We miss you!

Envision Lighting Design recently received a St. Louis Section Award and an IES Award of Merit for the lighting design at the Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The project inspired these thoughts from our Founding Principal, Lisa J. Reed:

​Oh, if these walls could speak…
These walls, built in 1859…
Would they tell you about the 60,000 plant specimens Henry Shaw housed here, and then would they go quiet, remembering when Shaw’s body lay in state here?
If these walls could speak, would they brag about when they were a film studio, or would they gossip about the conversations overheard when this was a restaurant?
If these walls could speak, would they tell you how lonely it was to stand empty for three decades, or would they just be excited about the architects and lighting designers who finally started coming around, doing mock-up after mock-up to get the color and distribution just right on the ceiling mural?
Would they tell you about the artist painstakingly tracing every line of the ceiling mural onto mylar – then taking a sample light fixture back to her studio to recreate the mural under the same light that would eventually illuminate it?

For the third summer, we have enjoyed having our intern, Aaron Reed, working with the ELD team. This summer, he applied for the IES St. Louis Section Scholarship, and we are pleased to announce that he is a scholarship winner. Thank you to the St. Louis Section, and congratulations to Aaron! 

Lighting has had a personal impact on my own life. I have interned at the world-renowned lighting design firm, Envision Lighting Design, for the past three summers. This experience has helped me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. It has given me a look into the professional world; I’ve discovered how lighting design works, and I’ve learned many useful skills.  Being able to have a close look at how a business really runs is one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned. I now realize there are an unthinkable amount of factors in making decisions and an unbelievable amount of decisions to be made. It has shown me how important communication is in the workplace. It seems like most of what is done in the office is talking with architects and distributors, or networking to try to get new projects. While interning at ELD I have been given the opportunity to solve real life problems with light. Before I got my valuable experience at ELD I thought lighting design was just installing a light bulb in a room. Now I know it is so much more than that. I have learned about things like color temperature, CRI, beam spread, and luminosity, and how they can be changed to meet your design goals. I have also learned all about the design process. Seeing the space, figuring out constraints, meeting the budget, making it look good, and then finding out they decreased the budget. I have also been able to learn many useful skills like how to build a website, a computer, and how to use Revit and AGI. ​

While I don’t know exactly what I want to major in I know good lighting will certainly play a significant role in the rest of my life. If nothing else, I will always be an advocate of a high standard of lighting. I and my family have contributed a great deal to the lighting world. My mom has been a lighting designer her entire professional career and has served on many IES committees. Her volunteer work for the community even goes beyond the IES panels; she has given many different speeches and has taught others about light and lighting design. She always tries to provide the highest quality lighting at the lowest cost. My dad works for an electrical distributor, Graybar, which is also an integral part of the lighting world. I have worked with a lighting design business and have gained the experience to know what good lighting is. I hope I can take this experience and apply it to the real world no matter what career path I go into. I am attending the Missouri University of S&T in the fall and plan on studying some kind of engineering. I want people to be able to understand the significance of light and how much it affects our lives. Just having people more aware of light around them will lead to better, more intentional lighting. ​

 It's back to school time, so naturally I'm putting together an educational seminar on the basics of color in lighting. Education = school; color -> crayons - > school supplies! Are you with me? Too much of a stretch?
Regardless, the presentation is called the Invisible Rainbow. There are a lot of people saying a lot of things about light and color. Some of them are lighting professionals. Some aren't. But lighting seems to be all the rage lately - from the American Medical Association's 2016 statement about the color of our LED street lights to the Illuminating Engineering Society's 2017 response. The purpose of this presentation is to help people understand the difference between color temperature and the color spectrum of a white light source. My co-presenter will be there to help people understand the difference between color metrics like CRI and TM-30.
We will not be telling you how to reset your circadian clock or eliminate obesity through lighting. (Bummer, I know!) But we will be defining all the parts and pieces you need to understand when you participate in today's light and health conversations as it pertains to color.
​I hope you'll join us at one of the following sessions:
Lightshow West, Los Angeles, October 11
,LED Specifier Summit, Chicago, November 14

I woke up yesterday morning with a painfully dry right eye. I couldn't open my eye without pain for the first few hours of the morning. It felt like the inside of my eyelid was made of sandpaper. I couldn't drive. I couldn't work. I used a warm compress and way too many re-wetting drops on my eye. Finally, by about 8:30 a.m., I could function. Barely. But even several hours after that my eye was puffy and uncomfortable.

Isn't it amazing how little things make such a big difference in our energy and productivity? 

How much more productivity and energy is being zapped by bad lighting? People who sit under bad lighting often describe it as "draining" or feel like it is "sucking the life" out of them. Light has a profound impact on people, so it is worth the time, energy, and cost to get it right. If a little thing like one painful eye nearly derailed my whole day, how much more is flicker, glare, poor color quality lighting affecting the entire workforce? Bad lighting can derail us all.

​At Envision Lighting Design, we are on a mission to make every day better by bringing quality light to your world! 

Your project has a budget. Maybe it's a tight budget. (Let's face it, it is always a tight budget.) You can't afford a lighting designer, right? Not so fast...
There seems to be a perception that a lighting designer is a project luxury. Why?

• Lighting designers charge fees for their services.

I would like to challenge this notion. Lighting designers charge fees, but so do architects, electrical engineers, and interior designers. If you believe in design - good design - paying a fee for design is an easy choice. But let's dig a little deeper.

Every project has a budget. Even though you may have to bite a bullet to pay a design fee up front, you should think of that fee as part of the overall lighting budget. Whatever total dollar amount you have in the bucket to pay for lighting - tell your lighting designer. They can design to that budget, including their fee! With this model, you have the added transparency of knowing exactly what part of your money went to design costs and what part went to product costs. Design costs aren't hidden in the cost of light fixtures sold to you.

A lighting designer will be there from start to finish of project, solving any problems that arise along the way, keeping costs in control by knowing product prices and preventing unnecessary overages, keeping change orders in check by being your advocate during construction. Lighting designers are worth their fees in gold. They know which products perform best and at what cost. They design more efficient solutions that save you money - initially or over the life cycle of the product. They inform you of rebates and tax deductions you can use to help pay for your project. Remember, no one is designing lighting for free. They may offer "free" design, but the cost of their service is wrapped up in the cost of the products they are selling. The only product an independent lighting designer is selling is the best solution for your project. Don't you want someone with your best interest in mind? ​