Light Emitting Diodes: Lighting Up The Design World
Illumination is an important part of any design. The source of lighting can change the feeling and usefulness of a space. Lighting comes from many sources including indirect or direct sunlight, tungsten lighting, fluorescent lighting and LED lighting. LED light bulbs have come a long way. LED bulbs were once too costly to be a realistic option for the basic consumer. Innovation in materials and design has changed the cost of producing usable white light for the home. Light Emmitting Diodes offers many advantages and are a greener choice for lighting.
LED light emitting diodes. These are solid state lighting sources that can convert an electrical impulse into light. LEDs last much longer then tungsten bulbs and because of the solid state, are much less likely to stop working due to vibration or a sudden bump. The lights are little and hardy. They can run the range of the color spectrum into non-visible light like infrared and ultraviolet with out the need for filters. These qualities make LED lighting a great choice for many projects.
Light Emitting Diodes send a narrow beam that is excellent for task lighting, like workbench lighting or kitchen work station lighting. The illumination of a wider area can be accomplished with reflectors and strip lighting. Book cases and cabinets are great examples of places these lights can be used. LED’s are great for safety lighting and are used in airplanes, theaters and other places where lights can help illuminate passage ways without spilling into other areas. These same principles can be used in home lighting for stair cases, walkways and closets.
One of the great advantages of these lights is the ability to paint areas with specific light and a variety of colors. Using LEDs in interior design for space lighting is becoming less expensive and more adaptive. Like track lighting these lights can isolate small sections. In addition, some LED lights can actually change color according to the need and desire of the home owner. A room can have walls that change color depending on the setting and desired ambiance. Using carefully chosen colors the lights can alter the hue of the room. Selecting paint and lighting colortakes a bit of experimentation and foresight. The room needs to look good in natural light as well as artificial light. Areas of the wall can sculpted with light. This allows for creating a sense of texture and depth onto a one dimensional wall.
Light emitting diodes can also be employed special decorative purposes. Door knobs can light up red or green to indicate occupancy or vacancy, faucets and shower heads can be lit up creating an attractive stream of water. Heat sensitive diodes can even indicate if the water is hot or cold. These lights can be sensitive to the temperature of a room, shifting the color to help create a better ambiance. If the room is cool, the lighting can shift to warmer colors and in a warm space the lights can shift to color tones. There are a lot of uses for light emitting diodes with more on the way. Interior designers will use LEDs more as the price drops and applications increase.
