lighting trends
Dopamine design is a relatively recent trend in interior design, evolved from the concept of “dopamine dressing” in fashion. It’s rooted in color psychology and the idea that certain design elements can trigger the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure. Dopamine design began seeping into interior design consciousness around 2022-2023, due to increased focus on home environments during and after the pandemic.
To explore this phenomenon and its impact on lighting design, we chatted with Grace Denniston, the award-winning industrial designer for Kalco Lighting.
The predictions business is about aggregating data from lots of different places. But if that weren’t an option – If you could just pick one resource or place to routinely visit; or one column to regularly read, in order to track and predict emerging trends – what would that be? For designers Robin Baron and Dann Foley, and trend forecasting expert Patti Carpenter, that answer is undoubtedly: Paris.
All of these luxury lighting trends go hand-in-hand, both aesthetically and thematically: The lighting styles of the 1920s and 1960s and 1970s are connected by their shared use of geometric shapes and bold colors. In the 1920s, Art Deco lighting featured geometric shapes and bright colors. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a revival of Art Deco style, and lighting designs once again featured geometric shapes and bold colors. This time, however, there was more of a focus on function, with lighting designs used to create specific moods or atmospheres. Pendant lights with spherical or cylindrical forms, often in vibrant hues like orange, yellow, and green, became emblematic of the era’s exuberant style. The 60s and 70s designs were also ahead of their time with a deliberate focus on sustainable materials and energy use, which aligns with the values of today’s environmentally conscious consumers.