On 07/02/2012 09:00, Adrian Brentnall wrote:
HI Folks
A group of us are setting up a co-operative art & crafts gallery / shop
out here in south-west Ireland.

We've pretty much decided on some premises - but they're going to need
some work to improve the lighting. Decent lighting's pretty important to
show off the items that are on sale. However, we're on a fairly tight
budget - not just for the capital items (light fittings etc) but also
for the ongoing running costs.

In which case, you really ought to be looking very seriously at whether
you have made the right decision. Under capitalisation is one of the
most common causes of business failure.

Premises currently have 2 double fluorescents (5ft or so?) in the larger
room (24ft x 10ft) and one double flouro in the smaller room (13ft x
8ft). There are also two recessed downlighters fitted with led spots -
but they don;t seem to contribute much light (if any!!)

Spotlights would be great, but we're concerned about installation &
running costs - and I've used led spots in the past to replace the
little 50w halogen spots on an exhibition stand and they are simply not
bright enough.

So - not wanting to start a 'holy war' on leds vs halogen - but what's
peoples experience on lighting such a retail outlet....

..my gut feel is more fluoro's - not pretty, but highly effective
and cheap to run...??

Display lighting is a science (or maybe an art) all of its own and there
will be no simple one size fits all answer. Centralised fluorescent
lighting would be fine for a grocery store, but an art gallery needs to
focus attention on individual products, which means you will need some
focus lighting. Unless, of course, you simply plan to heap lots of stuff
inside and hope that people will find something they want. They probably
won't bother to look though.

If you are in a suitable location for an open shop front (one with a
window) then you might, at the beginning, get away with just using spots
in that. As you don't want the window too cluttered, that could mean as
few as two or three spots illuminating as many objects. There should
also be some light near the bottom of the window, to avoid pooling of
shadows, but that could simply be a strip light, provided it is shaded
from view from outside. In the longer term, you should add focus
lighting (which should be 2-2.5 times as bright as the background
lighting) to displays inside as you can afford them. Ideally, they
should be movable, so you can redirect the focus from time to time,
which gives people a feel that the shop has changed since they last visited.

If you are in a low-traffic location (why?) a closed shop front may be
more effective, but then you will need to make an impact with the
display as people step through the door, which would mean you need to
give more attention to focus lighting inside.

The best answer is to go out and look at other shops, particularly any
in the same line, even if it means a fair bit of travel to do so, and
see what works.

Colin Bignell