What are the different types of lighting and why do you recommend one over the other?
This is a common question I get from people that don’t know the differences in types of outdoor led low voltage lighting. They know what the differences in the looks are but if we talk about the types, they do not know what they mean. I am going to break down a few of the most common types of lighting and give you some examples of those that we have done to hopefully shed a little light on the question.
Up Lighting
Often used on architectural and landscape features such as trees, shrubs, or property entrance areas. This is a fixture placed in the ground to shine up on a specific item. This draws a person’s eyes up the focused item and draws visual impact and creates a warm inviting atmosphere with accent lighting to draw a person’s eye up higher until it disappears into the darkness.
Down Lighting
When up lighting is not able to be done, often we look at down lighting as an option. In my opinion, it is not as appealing as up lighting as it doesn’t draw the eye up on the structure or landscaping feature. It is more of a practical lighting approach as it will illuminate a larger area of light on the ground.
Soffit Lighting
These are installed in the soffit of your eves to shine down along the side of a house generally for area lighting. This is not really an attractive way to provide accent lighting on a wall but more practical for lighting up an area or when ground up lighting is not an option.
Pathway Lighting
Used to light a walkway, sidewalk, outdoor patio, or landscape area. There are endless options of fixtures to use for this type of lighting from the traditional 18” hooded fixture to in ground recessed lighting to line the sides of a walkway or driveway area. These are very practical fixtures to use for safety and security as they illuminate by being close to the ground and use reflective surfaces to spread the light into a desired coverage area.
Bollard Lighting
We can use fixtures to create silhouettes and designs on the pavement or lawn area of your property while also providing lighting to a dark area. These fixtures are specially designed to push light up through a series of shapes that will then create shadows or specific patterns of light to create a desired look. There are many custom fixtures available and if you are looking for something specific, let’s work together to create your own custom design.
Area Lighting
Landscape area, planter beds, backyard patios, front yard planters, mailbox areas. We use a handful of different fixtures to accomplish the area lighting you are wanting to achieve. There has not been an area that we cannot light, we just need to work through the desired outcome with our designer and let him go to work on showing you the different fixture options we have available for your desired look. We often try to use very small fixtures in these scenarios so we can keep them hidden and when darkness falls, light appears out of nowhere.
Hardscape Lighting
Step lighting, wall lighting, rock lighting, outdoor fire place or fire pit, etc. Any hard surface that we can use to reflect light. Generally, they are key features or elements of a landscape design that get lost in the darkness. We can use very subtle accent lighting to bring it back to life at night or create an entire new feeling from that same area by adding some strategically placed lighting in the environment.
Roof Line Lighting
An architectural accent that focuses on outlining the outer edges of a building often called the roof line. We us a product from Inception by BlueHopper. It is a smart style system that is all app controlled and is often used as permanent Christmas lights in the residential space. In the commercial and municipality space it is used for event, holiday, team, and company branding with custom color options and preset effects that can all be scheduled in advance for seamless, no hassle use.
