Why Bad Lighting Is Costing You Customers

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Could bad lighting be quietly costing a restaurant its best customers?
"People aren't buying lumens. They're buying outcomes." Jenny West, founder of West Consulting and a former workplace strategist at Knoll and CRESA, joins hosts Avi Mor of Morlights and Lisa Reed of Reed Burkett Lighting Design (RBLD). West traces her path from Gensler through corporate change management to a practice spanning retail, aviation, and art. The trio unpacks budget pressure, borrows a fee structure from Broadway theater, and insists lighting teams belong in the visioning session from day one. Why does the industry still lack a shared research voice?

Jenny West is a multidisciplinary designer and artist and the founder of West Consulting, based in Colorado. A Kansas State University graduate in Interior Architecture and Product Design, she began at Gensler, where her work included the Westin Hotel and Transit Center at Denver International Airport. She spent nearly a decade at Knoll as a Global Account Director working with Fortune 100 brands including Google and Microsoft, then led Gensler's Denver consulting practice and later directed national workplace strategy as Vice President at Cresa. She holds NCIDQ and LEED AP ID+C credentials and has spoken at NeoCon, CoreNet, and IIDA.

In This Episode:

• (00:00) Framing part two of the Illuminate@NeoCon debrief
• (02:07) Hunter Tremaine of QTL on crossing into architecture and design
• (05:13) Why color quality is the "magic sauce" of good LED
• (08:35) Gregory Kay of Lightology and PureEdge on educating with color temperature
• (12:45) Brian Keilt of Lighting Services Inc on the color and material vignette
• (16:44) The ArtLifting installation and its last-minute rescue
• (19:29) Brian Maite of ALW on reaching an audience they don't normally see
• (23:32) Rebranding as an architectural brand, not a lighting brand
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About the show: 

Lighting Matters is hosted by Lisa Reed and Avi Mor. In each episode, we’ll dig deep into the meticulous process of creating lighting design for architecture, showcasing industry leaders who balance artistic creativity with technical precision, and listen as they share their successes and challenges in architectural lighting design.

Resources:

Watch the Illuminate@NeoCon panel referenced in this episode — "Lighting that Shapes Design" — featuring Avi Mor, Lisa Reed, and Jenny West: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OKOe1oX90Q

Jenny West / West Consulting — official site, portfolio, and press: https://www.jennywestartist.com

IES (Illuminating Engineering Society) — www.ies.org

IIDA (International Interior Design Association) — www.iida.org

ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) — www.asid.org

Lighting Matters Podcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lighting-matters-podcast/