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How to become a
Light Designer
What is a Light Designer, what do they do and how to become one?
Who is a Light designer?
Light Designers are designers who create lighting design projects for theatre, opera, exhibitions, events, shop windows and fashion shows.
What does a Light Designer do?
Light designers participate in creative meetings with directors or clients or art directors, and are in charge of finding an idea for the lighting, and communicating it through a lighting project.
They must be able to master hand-made technical drawing and to use 2D and 3D drawing software. They must also be familiar with all commercially available light fittings and their technical specifications.
Following a purely creative phase, light designers are in charge of the project’s feasibility and of supervising the set-up, so that the lit up set is consistent with the project presented to the director or client.
What skills should a Light Designer have?
- Creativity and imagination
- Space Awareness
- Curiosity towards all artistic and cultural areas
- Knowledge of the language of light
- Curiosity about light fittings’ technical features
- Coordinating and working in a team
How to become a Light Designer?
Cultivating a passion for technology and innovation, reading, theatre, visual arts, music.
One of the possibilities is to study set design in a Fine Arts Academy, after which it is possible to integrate this by joining specialised courses or working with a professional light designer as an assistant in to take your first professional steps.
