Professional interior designers are expertly trained in the use of lighting features to create breathtaking results. In this four-part series which I call “Colour Me Brightly: Understanding Light in Interior Design,” I draw on my experience in London’s interior design community to explain this fascinating subject. This first article is about patterns.

Ask a London schoolgirl to imagine natural patterns, and she may talk at length of curvaceous seashells, the undulating edge of waves on the shore, the grooves in a gnarled tree trunk. Interior designers know that patterns are all around us. Patterns profoundly influence all interior design schemes, transforming our appreciation of color and texture, adding fluctuations and drifts or promoting harmony and stillness. London Interior Designers will focus on soft, fluid outlines in order to create relaxing patterns. By contrast, bold graphic statements in a wallpaper stencil can be invigorating for a London discotheque or salon. Pattern is a foundational ingredient of interior design, fragmenting overwhelming shapes and plain surfaces while simultaneously lending personality and profundity to a room.

London’s professional interior designers know one big secret: pattern is created not only by fabric and wallpaper. Light also forms any number of patterns through a virtual tussle or rough-and-tumble interaction between light and shadow. Light patterns are foundational to interior design schemes – from snippeted, kinetic and frosted patterns to curvy arcs, spearhead-style lines and theatrical projections of abstract forms.

Patterns of light fall into two main interior design categories. The first is all about objects in the path of light, casting shadows. We draw our inspiration from the natural world where, when sunlight strikes rippling water on London’s famous River Thames, flickering patterns are reflected up into the trees along the water’s edge. Similarly, if an artificial light source is directed onto water – perhaps a pool, fountain or babbling artificial brook – active reflections will dapple the surrounding walls and become an interior design feature. Sunlight may shine through the branches of a tree to create moving patterns of light and shade below, and similarly a low-voltage uplight, positioned behind indoor plants, can create beautiful interior design features on the walls and ceilings. This technique can be stunning both inside and outside the building.

In my next article, I turn to patterns that use perforations and glass.

Professional interior designers are expertly trained in the use of lighting features to create breathtaking results. In this four-part series which I call “Colour Me Brightly: Understanding Light in Interior Design,” I draw on my experience in London’s interior design community to explain this fascinating subject. This third article talks about how to create patterns using opaque materials.

The second way for an interior designer to create light-based patterns involves opaque surfaces, which reflect light back into a room. This pattern creation process is more sophisticated and can be fine-tuned for stunning interior design effects. Light portrayals impact how we understand a surface and its texture. For example, the “standard” technique often seen in London residences simply involves casting a gentle play of light across a wall. The light brushes the fittings, causing the wall to appear even, flat and two-dimensional. Some top London Interior Designers know that their clients crave more drama and stylistic nuance. In such cases, placing lightwell fillings very close to the wall and angling them downwards can be really striking. Using this technique, interior design consultancies can transform the previous gentle wave into an enunciated designer style, as the photons shave the surface and build to form sturdy optical patterns, including top-level arcs and dramatic textures. A sharper, more laser-like focus will only make the pattern more conspicuous – recreating a look that is popular in many trendy London nightclubs.

The direct counterpoint to this interior design technique involves the use of close-offset uplighting. With this approach, floor-level filaments cause the eye to move up vertical columns of light which dance across the wall to form puddles of dappled reflected light on the ceiling. Professional London interior designers often work alongside colour consultants to make sure that the result has practical relevance as well as aesthetic appeal. In particular, some newer London residences often have uncomfortably low ceilings. Interior designers can use this lighting approach to draw attention to the vertical plane of the wall, thereby counterbalancing the hemmed-in feel of the low ceiling.

In the next and final article in this series called “Colour Me Brightly!” I will finish by revealing some top lighting tips from London’s interior design community.

Interior design consultancies understand light in all its forms. In London, lighting is crucial to interior design consultancies that need to create stunning results. In this, the eighth and final article in my series which I call “DeLIGHTed by Design,” I continue to draw on my experience working with some of London’s Top Interior Design Consultancies to explain this exciting area.

When most schoolchildren are asked to think of the countryside, they often imagine the hot, shimmering flicker of a bonfire on a crisp autumn evening or the comforting flare of a scented candle. But how is an interior design consultancy to re-interpret these fabulously earthy and atmospheric scenes for, say, an elegant central London flat? The answer is artificial light.

Interior design consultancies recognise that artificial light is available in many different shades. It is similar to the situation with paint, where buckets that are labelled “white” can actually contain a multitude of different tones. Interior design consultancies employ colour professionals who know that the cool white light of an energy-efficient bulb creates an entirely different effect from the warm yellow-orange tones of a tungsten filament. In London, low-voltage halogen options are often used in darker flats where there is a need to add light during the daytime. Interior design consultancies will install dimmer switches that allow homeowners to reduce the brightness of halogens at night, causing them to adopt a more husky yellow-red glow that is akin to an ancient lantern or oil lamp. By contrast, lamplight is too yellow for most interior design consultancies to include for daytime use, and indeed it can lead to sleepiness or lethargy at work (one of the reasons it is almost never seen in London offices). But at night, tungsten lamps become much more warm and welcoming.

Some interior design consultancies have a love-hate relationship with fluorescent lighting options. These fixtures often emit various shades of white, ranging from a very cool, almost daylight tone, which can be quite crisp, to a warm, rosy streetlight glow. Some interior design consultancies love fluorescent lights for London kitchens, where they illuminate workspaces but save on electricity bills. However, other interior design consultancies stay well away from fluorescent options because their colour does not change as they are dimmed. Fluorescents merely become less bright under such conditions, which can contribute to an unattractively dull, and almost grey, lighting effect.

That brings me to the end of my series “DeLIGHTed by Design.” Thank you for letting me share with you about how London interior design consultancies create fabulous lighting schemes!

Thomas Chippendale didn’t grow up in London (in fact he was born in Leeds in 1718), but he did move to London at the age of 31, after he had already gained recognition as a premiere furniture maker and cabinetry-focused interior designer. His work and styles influenced the London Interior Design community then, and the Chippendale aesthetic continues to extend its impact well beyond London even today.

Chippendale’s fluent, natural and sophisticated style developed after the promotion of his furniture and interior designs in “The Gentleman and the Cabinetmaker’s Director” in 1754. Chippendale continued to make iconic contributions to the field of interior design until 1790. His furniture came to be manufactured as far afield as Philadelphia in the USA.

Chippendale drew on three key interior design inspirations for this work – namely French, Asian and Goth. In the USA, Chippendale’s work was interpreted as a re-envisionment of the Queen Anne interior design style. His furniture was often heavily ornamentalised on the feet and uppers, with beautiful heritage-inspired scroll tops on taller units. Yellow Birch and Mahogany were often used, undersupport was rarely employed, and the rears of seated furniture were covered with plush fabric or otherwise left as shaped wood, perhaps as tessellated piecework with ornamental sculpting and Asia-inspired cross-strips. To round out his own personal interior design style, Chippendale would also include delightful finials and varnished shellac features.

Enthusiasts and professionals alike were very taken with Chippendale’s work, lauding him as a master London cabinetmaker and a household name of eighteenth-century furniture-focused interior design.

Harewood House is a popular Leeds tourist attraction, located about 4 hours’ drive from Central London. The famous building features a magnificent collection of Chippendale library furniture that was originally ordered during the 1760s. The interior design style reflects Chippendale’s ideals throughout and showcases his focus on both form and function.

Today, London’s interior designers are often called to reconstruct period rooms in traditional mansions or luxury residences. Often Chippendale furniture will play a major role in such interior design concepts. Chippendale-inspired furniture designs such as those of Henrietta Spencer-Churchill may also be ideal for certain settings. However, the fresh lines of many Chippendale pieces also lend themselves to contemporary interior design concepts – many interior designers will use some of the more extravagant Chippendale pieces to offset some of the more frosty and unforgiving modern furniture elements.

Interior designers sometimes get asked about the hottest colour trends. And this season, we have a confession to make: white is the new black! White interior designs are hip and trendy once again, and in particular those sterile white kitchens are now all the rage. This is particularly true in London, where the dull and gloomy skies can make clients cry out for a touch of bright white interior design freshness.

When you walk into a beautiful white kitchen designed by a top London Interior Designer, what do you feel? Many of us are overwhelmed with all sorts of emotions. We feel carefree and almost as if we are floating on air. The pervasive whiteness brings to mind age-old simplicity, sanitary freshness, contemporary impact, and a roomy, playful outlook. The interior designer will use the white kitchen as a philosophy to evoke a sentiment of purity for food preparation and to empower boundless chef-inspired inspiration.

Many interior design consultancies use white as a fabulous background for the presentation of magical colours and textures. For example, one top trend today is to use deeply varnished wooden joists to contrast with sharply-defined white architectural surrounds. Colourful interior design accents really “pop out” in this context. Alternatively, the quiet pastels of a London autumn can make for a classic and sophisticated interior design scheme.

The newest London kitchens may be white today, but the true home of the white kitchen has got to be Sweden. Just like London, Stockholm has short days and long nights for much of the year. Homeowners naturally crave interior designs that maximise the amount of reflected internal light in these climates. Swedish interior designers will create themes that are inspired by the widespread use of wintertime candles and sconces.

Returning to less northern cities like London, a simple white kitchen works well with dramatic black accents. A very dark or bold interior design element, used rhythmically in the kitchen, creates balance and interest. Contrast in tone and color is the underpinning of what might otherwise be experienced as a ‘simple’ or ‘flat’ kitchen.

Is a white kitchen ‘classic’ in the sense that it can ‘fit’ into any interior design? Certainly not! Understanding design context, and especially the architecture of all the elements, the proportions of color and tone, and a true balance with the surrounding interior spaces, are essential for the presentation of a visual logic, a ‘whole’. Top London interior designers recognise this, and their efforts have made the white kitchen philosophy a real winner today.