It seems that this question concerns not only our magazine but also many others involved in the lighting industry.
In a recent conversation with a company representative who reads our online magazine, I was taken aback by what I heard about the climate that has developed between lighting companies and lighting designers.
Many of us have certainly heard lighting designers attack importers and manufacturers over the lighting proposals they present. According to the designers, these proposals do not reflect reality, and the presentations are in essence a way of promoting products the companies themselves manufacture or import.
Likewise, most designers use their projects to promote products from foreign companies that they either represent themselves or work with.
By way of example, in a conversation with one of the best-known lighting designers, who has a large, high-quality portfolio of projects in Greece, he confided in me that he refuses to purchase (not to specify) products from the Greek market, and specifies luminaires from companies he works with directly.
But what guarantee does the client have that the designer is not operating in exactly the way he criticises companies for operating? And if the answer is expertise, we all know that there are companies (few, admittedly, but they exist) with respected professionals on staff who are capable of putting forward worthwhile proposals. I suppose they owe us an answer to this question.
All this happens, obviously, because in the Greek market few projects can bear the additional cost of a lighting design, so professional designers make up part of their income by also selling lighting systems.
Of course, companies promoting their own products naturally use the specifications of their own luminaires in their proposals. The difference is that they do not charge the client for the design, but unfortunately in most cases they lack the necessary expertise.
Given all this, what the interested party should ultimately choose and whom to trust is a matter of individual judgement, because the roles of both sides are the same.
Some rely on their “gift”, others on their “charm”…
