How to Light Artifacts Wrong

Lighting exhibitions of light-sensitive artifacts is really hard.

We often do it wrong — and end up with dimly lit beige objects, on dim beige fabric panels, in dim beige rooms.

Why?

For a valuable light-sensitive artifact to draw the eye and look important, it still has to pop (appear as the brightest object), even though almost no light is allowed on it. 

You can’t change the color of the artifact, or light it more. 

That means you have to make everything else seem darker, or make everything else seem less brightly lit, or both.

So don’t start with the room.

Start with the collection objects in the space. Make sure whatever the eye sees nearest the object appears to be lit less, and appears darker in color. 

Light-colored object? Medium or dark-colored background.

Dark-colored object? Very dark-colored background.

The goal is to make sure that your pupils don’t get smaller whenever they look away from the object.

Now it’s time to consider the whole room — last. Make the room feel relatively dark-hued, and relatively less brightly lit, compared to the objects.

Here’s the thing:
Good lighting of sensitive objects isn’t just about lowering the light on the object.

It requires rethinking the whole room — objects first.

Warmly,
Jonathan

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MtM Word of the Day:
Deliverables. The quantifiable documents distributed to a client in the course of a project. Example: an in-house exhibition design team works for a year on an exhibition. Day to day, their work is intangible to their colleagues, but at certain times they deliver a set of drawings (deliverables) for review.