Improperly designed boardroom lighting can set a bad tone that puts meeting participants on edge and creates unconscious negativity that works against teamwork and profitability. Designing effective lighting for a boardroom requires a systematic layered lighting approach where different sources, levels, and forms of light fill the room with visibility and clarity for task-oriented focus. Boardroom lights should also compliment task with aesthetic highlights to highlight unique features, decorations, and artwork.



Additionally, designer boardroom lighting should deliver at all times a higher level of user control than standard office lighting because most boardrooms are used not only for meetings, but also for presentations that require ambient lighting as backdrop to audiovisual presentations and keynote speeches.

Because the boardroom plays host to different individuals with varying degrees of eyesight and comfort levels, boardroom lighting design requires a field of clear, softer light disbursed evenly throughout the room. Lighting designers achieve this lighting effect?known as indirect lighting'by shining light onto the ceiling so it reflects downward in dispersed, albeit sufficiently visible amounts. This eliminates pockets of shadow that can create unconscious negative emotions and damage rapport between attendees. Designers in turn enhance this field of light with task and accent lights that facilitate specific actions and showcase prominent d'cor.

Clients frequently report that installing such as system, the general tone of their meetings became more upbeat, focused, objective, and characterized by more effective communication between attendees.

While it is very important to establish appropriate tone and atmosphere, truly effective boardroom lighting design has to evolve beyond the merely emotional and psychological into the task-oriented and functionally aesthetic. Comfort and amenities play an important role in setting the tone for meetings and presentation, but focus and productivity must remain paramount if meetings are going to generate tangible results.

An absolute must for truly customized, designer boardroom lighting systems is the ability to seamlessly shift illumination from meeting mode to presentation mode. Whenever Power Point or video comes into play, the bright light of meeting space has to dim in all areas of the room, leaving only enough ambient lighting to avoid total darkness and focus the eyes toward the screen. The lighting system must also enable meeting coordinators to ?spotlight? the speaker in a field of light around podium or lectern, or when standing in front of a whiteboard.

These effects require specialty fixtures installed with dimmer switches that allow meeting facilitators to control lighting levels both throughout the room and at individual points within the room. These dimmers can be manipulated with user friendly controls that meetings allow meeting coordinators smoothly and effortlessly adjust lighting levels for presentations, AV segments, and speeches without the embarrassment of having to fiddle with lights for minutes at time.

Organizations from a wide range of industries are increasingly paying closer attention to the benefits offered by more sophisticated boardroom design solutions. The utilization light as a functional design element with a purpose that also conveys a pleasant and sophisticated aesthetic offers brings the boardroom into the position of preeminence within any number of commercial facilities.

Chambers of Commerce, executive meeting areas, and hotel and resort planning committees can all benefit from the psychological and practical elements brought to the boardroom table.