In the rush to find the perfect office furniture and accessories, lighting is often overlooked. Yet poor lighting choices can make it difficult to work while having a negative impact on workplace mood and performance. To make sure this doesn’t happen to you, keep the following do’s and don’ts in mind when selecting office lighting:
The Do’s of Office Lighting:
- Do use natural lighting – Bring in as much natural light as you can. Not only is natural light free, it’s also much better quality than artificial lighting and can help improve your mood.
- Do use indirect lighting – Lights that are directly pointed down from the ceiling to the desk can be problematic since direct lighting often results in eye strain as well as lower productivity.
- Do space your lighting out – You’ll want to create a uniform lighting scheme so that parts of your office aren’t either too bright or too dark.
- Do consider furniture placement – You don’t want your office lighting creating a glare on computer screens, nor do you want to be staring directly into your lights. Where necessary, think about how you can position shelves and dividers to help block direct light from certain areas.
- Do control your lighting – Because natural lighting changes throughout the day, you’ll want to be able to make up for lost light with your artificial lighting. The best way to do this is through the use of dimmers, which can also help you save energy and energy costs when full lighting isn’t needed.
The Don’ts of Office Lighting:
- Don’t use only one source of light – You’ll want to use a combination of accent lighting and task lighting in addition to your general lighting. For example, supplement your overhead lighting with desk lamps and wall sconces.
- Don’t use the wrong wall colors – Try to avoid darker colors since this will make the room look darker, in turn requiring more light. However, you don’t necessarily want pure white walls either since these can create glare.
- Don’t use cheap light bulbs – Consider investing in LED light bulbs. Not only is the quality of light much better, but they are more efficient as well. Even though their initial cost is more, they’ll last much longer than traditional light bulbs and use less energy
Keep these do’s and don’ts in mind when designing your office lighting and your office experience will be a more luminous one. For additional advice on how to effectively design your office space, contact us at Office Furniture Direct today.