The Ultimate Guide to Lighting Design for Interior Designers by SONA

Lighting can make or break an interior. While cheap LED fittings may light a space functionally, they often fail to enhance its atmosphere, architecture, or the human daily experence of living in a luxury home. Let's be honest - our clients aren't building a luxury home to have an average experience once they move in.

Many builders or quantity surveyors, focused on cost (and lacking in the specialist arena of lighting), often default to low-quality LEDs that produce:

• Harsh, uneven illumination

• Poor colour rendering (how badly a light source shows the true colors of objects compared to natural sunlight)

• Glare and flicker

• Flat, lifeless ambiance

These lights check the functional box, but do little to elevate the design. And that's simply not good enough when it comes to any modern luxury home.

Human-centric lighting places people at the heart of lighting design—aligning artificial light with our natural circadian rhythms to support wellness, comfort, and performance. By carefully balancing brightness, color temperature, and light distribution throughout the day, interior designers can positively influence mood, sleep quality, focus, and overall well-being.

Beyond the aesthetics, the quality of light—including factors like glare control, colour rendering (CRI), and flicker-free performance— lighting directly impacts how spaces feel and function. At SONA, we prioritize high-quality, human-centric lighting solutions that not only enhance interiors visually, but also promote healthier, more comfortable living and working environments.

Premium lighting brands like Orluna, John Cullen, Phos and others, transform interiors by combining technical excellence with design elegance:

• Superior color rendering (CRI) brings out the richness of materials and finishes that you have spent so much time and energy perfectly curating
• Even, layered light distribution supports human-centric, wellness-focused lighting for your clients
• Flicker-free performance creates visual comfort for work and leisure and reduced stress
• Beautiful, thoughtful fixture design complements the space as an aesthetic object and elevates the overall design and feel of the house

In today's world, lighting isn’t functional—it is part of the design narrative that Leading Interior Designers and Architects are having with their clients, enhancing textures, highlighting architectural features, and shaping mood.

Bridging the Education Gap

Despite these advantages, many clients, contractors, and even interior teams are still unaware of how much high-quality lighting can elevate a project. Educating stakeholders about the benefits of premium fixtures has become a huge part of what SONA do, and why the SONA Lighting Suite in Cheshire exists.

If you've been in to visit us and you’ve experienced high-quality lighting, the difference is harshly apparent. Poor-quality LEDs suddenly feel harsh, flat, cold and uninviting. They can even hurt the eye. Surfaces lose their texture, colours appear muted, dulled or distorted, and the overall atmosphere feels lifeless.

Good lighting doesn’t just illuminate a space—it enhances mood, highlights details, and makes every element feel intentional. Once you’ve seen this in action, it’s impossible to go back to ordinary, low-quality fixtures.

So, how can you go about incorporating lighting in to your

You will already have a creative vision for the space. You will know the style, feeling and intention of the space when you come to us.

• Is this space meant to feel calm, dramatic, vibrant, or intimate?

• What time of day will it be used most?

• What will people be doing in the space? e.g relaxing, socialising, reading, watching TV

• How you want people feel when they enter

Lighting is a powerful emotional tool. Warm, layered lighting creates comfort and luxury, while crisp, high-output light increases energy and focus. At this stage, SONA works with designers to translate abstract concepts into lighting moods

Lighting should respond to the structure as well of the time of day, not fight with it so we always want to work with you to evaluate

• Window placement and daylight direction

• Ceiling heights and architectural features

• Surface finishes and reflectivity

Natural light determines how artificial lighting (and shading with motorised curtains/blinds) can support or balance the space and we'll work with you early on to ensure lighting enhances the architectural lines, textures, shapes and depth.

Great lighting is never one-dimensional, and we find Interior Designers tend to use three key layers:

1. Ambient Lighting – General illumination for the overall space

2. Task Lighting – Functional lighting for specific activities

3. Accent Lighting – Highlighting features, textures, and focal points

• Reference Images to show us the look and feel you want to create
• Floor Plans
• Joinery elevations
• Any particular features you want to enhance, highlight

We can then use all of this information to help you achieve this from a technical perspective or help you with the lighting design itself. We'll then be able to:-

• Provide Infrastructure Layouts and cabling requirements to ensure the space is wired correctly
• Provide Lighting Layouts
• Instruct your electrician on your behalf
• Advise on beam angles, driver placement, circuiting, arcs, colour temp, dimming type and other practicalities
• Prepare budgets for clients to review
• Maintenance Access: Plan for driver replacements, cleaning, or bulb changes without disrupting finishes.
• Integration with Architecture: Coordinate with ceiling details, flooring, window reveals, joinery, and feature walls for seamless lighting integration.
• Provide you as the Interior Designer with a Managed Lighting Supply - all the pros, none of the cons! (see below)

The SONA managed lighting supply refers to the supply of a lighting system where both the fixtures and the controls are coordinated, optimised, managed and supported as a complete solution. Unlike standard lighting setups where products and controls are often chosen separately, perhaps l

• All components work seamlessly together (fixtures, drivers, dimmers, smart controls).

• Every element is supplied by SONA, each item is carefully checked and labelled at SONA HQ in conjunction with detailed lighting drawings.

• It can be stored in our fully secure, insured warehouse until installation day

• Energy usage is optimised, reducing waste and operational costs.

• Lighting scenes and schedules can be pre-programmed with the Interior Designer and client supporting both design, comfort and functionality. E.g. 'Evening Dinner Scene' can be created

• Maintenance is simplified, with centralised control and monitoring of all connected lights.

• All managed by SONA so any lighting queries can be directed to us whether now or in future

For interior designers, this means a space can be fine-tuned for mood, activity, and wellness without compromising design aesthetics or risking mistakes from a technical perspective. This allows you as the interior designer to deliver luxurious, human-centric lighting experiences for your clients that are easy to operate, adaptable, and future-proof - all without having to manage the technical element.

Interior designers choose SONA not just for products, but for partnership. We are here to support your creative process by offering:

• Early-stage lighting consultation

• Custom lighting solutions (or help with design if needed)

• Technical expertise and site coordination

• High-quality light fittings and controls

• Long-term support beyond project completion for the life of the home

• Free lighting programming for life for your clients

Our mission is simple: to help interior designers turn beautiful spaces into unforgettable experiences through lighting.

Often, investing in high-quality lighting and smart controls in a room can cost less than a single luxury coffee table or rug—but its impact on a space and YOUR OVERALL DESIGN is far greater than any single piece. While furniture and decor define style, lighting shapes mood, highlights architecture, and brings every design element to life (or kills it). Educating clients on well-designed lighting gives your interiors an elevated sense of luxury, cohesion and enhanced wellness that your clients will thank you for once they move in.

Lighting is not just about visibility—it’s about storytelling, emotion, and experience. When integrated thoughtfully, it becomes one of the most powerful tools in interior design.

With SONA as your lighting partner, your vision doesn’t just get illuminated—it gets elevated.

Whether it’s a single room or an entire home, SONA can help you bring your interior design vision to life with high-quality, human-centric lighting. From concept to installation, we provide expert guidance, technical support, premium fixtures, and seamless control systems to ensure your design looks and feels extraordinary.

If you've been in to the studio, you know the difference it can make, so drop Nicola or Simon a line at info@thinksona.com or call 01625 541442 and let's get started OR click here to book a tour of our Lighting Suite to see the difference for yourself.