Lighting is often an overlooked aspect of design, but strategic lighting design decisions can mean the difference between a stunning and lackluster space. Lighting trends in high-end design are constantly evolving to combine style, ambience, and functionality, resulting in spaces that are both modern and inviting.
New lighting trends embrace new ways to illuminate a design while incorporating elements that improve mood and energy efficiency. These trends reflect a growing recognition that lighting is more than just a functional necessity but also a key component of creating a balanced and layered space.
The majority of new lighting trends aim to improve your space’s functionality and efficiency while also adding personality and distinction.
Sculptural and Statement Lighting
Sculptural and statement lighting transforms a room by giving it an artistic focal point that immediately elevates the space. This type of lighting goes beyond functionality by incorporating natural and organic forms that resemble shapes such as flowing water or mountain silhouettes, adding softness and fluidity to a room’s design. The emphasis of this lighting trend is on striking aesthetics that can attract attention, but it can also be used to enhance the furniture and architecture of the room.
The sculptural and statement lighting trend aligns with an emerging interest to add unique and expressive elements into the home, where lighting has become another way to show off personal style. Sculptural lighting pieces not only add ambience to a room but also reflect the trend toward lighting as an artistic expression.
Mood-Enhancing Lighting
As homeowners are becoming more aware of their homes as spaces to support their well-being, mood-enhancing lighting has become a trending lighting choice. Mood-enhancing lighting emphasizes creating a layered light design that blends different types of light according to the room’s function, style, and layout. The goal is to ensure that the lighting in each room can be adjusted throughout the day to support the function of each room.
Beyond functionality, mood-enhancing lighting trends aim to make each room feel calming and restorative. This trend focuses on rooms such as bathrooms and bedrooms where relaxation is essential.
Hidden and Discreet Lighting
While appearing to contradict the trend of bold lighting, hidden and discreet lighting is also gaining traction in current lighting design. This trend focuses on subtle solutions like recessed LEDs, plaster-in fixtures, and concealed strip lighting along ceilings or shelves. These lighting elements not only maintain a minimalist aesthetic, but they also provide an excellent way to highlight specific and unique architectural features or textures within the design.
Designers can create soft and ambient light effects that make the space feel more sophisticated by strategically using concealed lighting, such as backlighting shelves, accenting stairs, or lighting cabinets, particularly when combined with other lighting types.
Smart Lighting
Smart lighting is becoming an essential feature in modern homes with other smart systems due to its convenience, adaptability, and energy efficiency. These systems enable homeowners to operate lighting controls with their smartphones, voice controls, and/or sensors, allowing for simple adjustments based on time and use. Another useful feature is the ability to change the lighting temperature throughout the day to better simulate natural daylight.
Smart lighting is an excellent choice for retrofitting older homes because it does not necessitate the extensive wiring that traditional lighting does. It is also an excellent choice for open-plan and multi-purpose spaces because it allows you to create an overall lighting design that caters to a wide range of needs in different areas of the room.
Oversized and Bold Pendants
Serving as both a practical source of ambient light and a striking visual feature, oversized and bold pendant lights are becoming a defining feature in contemporary homes. These large-scale features provide dramatic focal points and distinguish dining rooms, living rooms, kitchens, entryways, and bedrooms.
Designers are increasingly using pendants with sculptural forms and distinct textures to complement high ceilings and define specific zones in open-concept spaces. These statement pieces not only add balance to large, open spaces but also allow homeowners to express their creativity and personal preferences.
Natural and Textured Materials
Natural and textured materials are becoming increasingly popular as a way to add warmth and depth to interior design. Fixtures made of materials such as rattan, cloth, shells, concrete, brass, and wood are appealing due to their tactile properties. Depending on the lighting shape and materials used, these can complement a range of design styles, from rustic to contemporary.
Incorporating earthy textures into lighting allows for the addition of tactile elements to the design, which gives it a more realistic and grounded feel. Natural and textured lighting is part of a larger trend toward biophilic design, which reflects natural shapes and textures. By repeating these themes in the furniture and arrangement of the space, designers complement the lighting.
Polished Metal Finishes
Subdued brushed metal surfaces are gradually being replaced by shiny and reflective metal elements in lighting. Polished metals like brass, nickel, and chrome are a good way to bring variety into a space, making them the “go-to” choice in modern lighting design. These sparkling surfaces capture and amplify light and add understated glam to the design.
Chrome, in particular, is having a design moment because of the retro look that metal brings. Designers are also mixing metals and finishes throughout a design to make the space feel more layered and interesting.
Retro and Vintage-Inspired Lighting
Following the broader trend of making room designs feel more personal and distinct, vintage and retro-inspired lighting styles are a good way to blend modern aesthetics with vintage charm. Lighting styles with frosted glass, milk glass, industrial Edison bulbs, and mid-century-inspired shapes are popular as a way to differentiate designs.
Adding vintage-style lighting is not an all-or-nothing prospect; instead, they look best when you layer them with modern or contemporary pieces to create a collected and curated-looking design. Retro lighting is available at antique and vintage stores, but be sure to get these rewired to ensure they are safe to use. If you are uncomfortable with antique or vintage fixtures or are unable to find the shape you want, look at reproduction lighting, which has a wide variety of fixtures that echo different design eras available.
Distinctive Shades
Another notable lighting trend is the use of custom-designed and distinctive shades. These may have unique shapes or materials, such as a mushroom or conical shape, or reeded, fluted, or pleated textures. These unique shade shapes and textures can enhance both modern and traditional settings, softening and diffusing the lighting. The use of scallops for shades is another trend; it is a stylish yet whimsical style that can improve a range of areas. Using raffia or colored materials to shade the light in a particular way is another notable trend for lamps as well as pendant lights and chandeliers.
Colored Lighting
Colored lighting fixtures are a fun and sophisticated way to enhance both contemporary and traditional room designs. These light fixtures enable homeowners to add vibrancy and depth to their spaces, creating a whimsical atmosphere and echoing specific design elements. This trend is consistent with the overall trend of creating a more personalized space.
Colored lighting fixtures, which come in a variety of colors such as emerald green, deep blue, and terracotta, are an excellent way to improve the appearance of a room without the need for elaborate decor. They work well with metallic and natural materials, adding warmth, vibrancy, and visual interest.
