Last month, lighting industry news website, inside.lighting, published a new Lighting Designer Directory. To find out more about this new industry resource, I interviewed Al Uszynski, Editor & Publisher of inside.lighting.
DS: When did you launch the Lighting Designer Directory on inside.lighting?
AU: We’ve been contemplating a lighting designer directory for a couple of years, but the work really started in late 2021. The debut of the Lighting Designer Directory was February 2022.
Our mission was to find a way to give a signal boost to architectural lighting designers while segmenting them from other “lighting design” professions that relate to live events, film, TV production, landscape installations and the design of custom light fixtures. Try Googling “Lighting Designer in…” for your city and it’s often hard to find architectural lighting designers among all the different search results.
DS: How many lighting designers are in the database, currently?
AU: We take a firm-centric approach and not an individual-designer approach. We have over 350 architectural design firms listed that represent over 1,000 individual architectural lighting designers throughout the U.S. and Canada.
DS: How should a lighting designer / firm get themselves added to your directory, if they’re not currently listed?
AU: Design firms should send us their firm information via the inside.lighting contact form. Include a link to the firm website. We’ll take a look at their online portfolio to ensure they provide architectural lighting design services. Easy peasy – and we never charge designers for listings or links.
DS: Do you anticipate adding any search functionality around vertical specializations, such as healthcare, hospitality, industrial, retail, etc.?
AU: That is a cool suggestion but also one that might not create the differentiation that one would expect. We anticipate that most firms would check the questionnaire box for each of those project types. We provide links to each firm’s website, so their online portfolio can speak to their unique expertise. In most states and provinces there are fewer than 15 listings, so it’s a manageable experience for the website visitor.
DS: How do you feel the response has been to the directory, from lighting designers and directory users?
AU: It’s been fantastic. When we first launched the directory, we were flooded with inquiries from designers to tweak their listings, add their satellite office location, etc. – which we take as a good sign that there’s value to the design firms. We continue to get several new designers per week requesting to be listed. We received lots of positive feedback from the lighting design community at the recent LEDucation 2022 trade show and conference.
DS: Who do you think are the primary users of the directory? Building owners? Architects? Construction firms? Other?
AU: The main goal is to attract visitors who are seeking architectural lighting design services. As inside.lighting has grown to over 50,000 visitors per month, we know that we get some good traffic from architects and end-users. The real value will come over time as Google fully indexes the directory and starts pointing organic search traffic to the directory.
We predict that later this year when someone Googles “Lighting Designer in _______” that we will be a top search result just like we are currently the #1 result for “Lighting News,” “Lighting Industry Jobs” and “Lighting Agents in __________.”
DS: How do you see the directory evolving over time?
AU: We want to grow the directory size to make it even more useful. We’d also like to add an Instagram link to each listing. As social media consumers, we believe the best social platform for architectural design firms is Instagram. Seeing the visuals of their finished work, or the videos of an installation in progress is the best way to capture the value that these awesome service professionals bring to their projects.
Thanks for the thoughtful questions – we really appreciate what LightNOW does and enjoyed the opportunity to connect!
Learn More: The Lighting Designer Directory »
You must be logged in to post a comment.