On Feb 7, 6:16*pm, ss wrote:
On 07/02/2012 16:46, Adrian Brentnall wrote:

On 07/02/2012 14:58, NT wrote:
On Feb 7, 9:00 am, Adrian 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.

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...??

Thanks
Adrian

Reading the answers it looks like this lot could make a useful wiki
article. I suppose it would be for diy shopfitting, but not house
maintenance.

HI
Yes - it did seem quite straightforward and 'fluff-free'....
I'm sure they'd be happy to let you reproduce it if you asked them -
and, if you didn't, then they'd probably never know! g

A

"Most of my glass (stained / fused) are panels and are best displayed
with light behind them (that'll be a challenge!)
*
* I dont know whether you can get away with just one spotlight per item.
* The nearer the spots are to the product, the lower power they can be,
* so there is often mileage in having 5 watt spots right up almost
* touching the item."

You could also add to gain maximum use of window space at night some low
power spots highlighting certain areas of the shop but on a sort of
timer so it changes throughout the night. I saw this done in a
hairdressers and was impressive. With it being totally dark even low
wattage should create an effect. It gets attention throughout the night
as people walk past.

....switch them every 5 seconds for max attention.


NT