/
The question you should ask before any lighting scheme, and almost nobody does
Ask yourself: "Why do you want a lighting designer on this project, right now?"
Most briefs don't ask this. Most kickoff meetings don't either.
And the reason isn't that designers aren't curious, it's that the standard project workflow doesn't make this a visible question to ask. Lighting gets treated as a late-stage procurement step: pick a fixture, order it, install it. The conversation about what lighting should actually do for this specific project, at this specific moment, rarely happens.
Lighting does a different job depending on when it enters the process.
Lighting does a different job at every phase:
At the concept stage, a lighting designer can help shape how the space is meant to feel: the atmosphere, the hierarchy, the visual story. The decisions made here influence everything downstream: ceiling treatment, material choices, structural allowances for fixtures.
At the schematic stage, the work shifts to translating that intent into a preliminary scheme: fixture families, layer strategy, rough placement.
At the detail stage, it becomes technical coordination: exact positions, exact products, integration with structure and services.
At the construction stage, it is largely supervision and correction.
The unfortunate reality is that most lighting consultants are brought in at the detail or construction stage.
By then, the concept is fixed, the materials are chosen, and the ceiling has been designed around different assumptions. The lighting designer's job then becomes fitting within decisions that are already locked, rather than helping shape the space. Which is a fundamentally different thing.
The question "Why do you want a lighting designer right now?" is really asking: what phase are you in, and what job do you need the lighting to do?
Once you know the answer, you know how to use the collaboration.
What happens when you ask it early
A few years ago, a New Zealand interior designer brought me in at the concept stage on a retail project. It was a specialty meat shop. It’s not the most obvious showcase for lighting design, but that's exactly what made it useful to understand.
Because I was involved from the beginning, I could understand what the space was trying to feel like before anything was fixed. We had proper discussions at the start and end of each phase, not just receiving decisions, but contributing to them. That gave us time to develop a custom lighting fixture designed specifically for the space, and to calibrate the scheme around what was actually being sold: making cured meats and sausages look rich and appetizing rather than gray and clinical.
In the end, the project won four awards, including a Red Dot.
What would the scheme have looked like if I had been brought in at the detail stage? Almost certainly no custom fixtures. Lighting would be designed around structural decisions that were already decided upon. The space that would have been lit, technically, but not shaped by light.
The difference wasn't the quality of the lighting design. It was the phase at which the conversation started.
How to naturally incorporate lighting in your workflow
The practical question is how to actually ask this earlier, and it depends on the kind of workflow you're in.
If you work with consultants, the shift is simpler than it sounds. Share your concept before it is resolved. You do not need to have the lighting figured out first, that is the whole point. A lighting designer brought in at the concept stage is not there to validate your decisions. They are there to contribute and start a discussion with you. The more fixed the scheme is before the conversation starts, the less room there is to move.
If you are currently handling lighting yourself (sourcing from distributors, briefing electricians, or specifying without a dedicated consultant) the question will look different.
Understand that the gap is not willingness or knowledge, but that the standard workflow was never built to support real lighting decisions at the right stage.
That is the gap CHUBIC is built to close.
Kitchen/dining lighting in CHUBIC — from prompt to plan in 5 minutes
FAQ
When is the latest it's still worth bringing in a lighting designer?
Detail stage is workable, but at that point, the lighting designer is fitting around decisions rather than shaping them. The concept or schematic stage is when the collaboration has the most room to produce something that the space couldn't have reached otherwise.
What should I share with a lighting designer at the concept stage?
Whatever you have. A mood board, a floor plan sketch, a reference image, anything that communicates the intended feeling of the space. The lighting designer's job at that stage is to understand what you are trying to create, not to receive a finished brief.
What if the client hasn't confirmed the lighting budget yet?
Bring in the lighting designer anyway. The decisions made at the concept stage (ceiling treatment, material choices, structural allowances) are exactly the ones that shape what the budget will need to cover. Knowing the lighting intent early makes the budget conversation more grounded, not less.
Jimmy Chu is a lighting designer with 15 years of experience leading AECOLIGHT. He is the founder of CHUBIC, a platform helping architects and interior designers make confident lighting decisions earlier in the design process.
