Office Lighting Guide: Light up your office – the right way 

Unlike choosing lighting within your home to light up your bedroom or living room, office lighting requires a completely different approach. The modern office of today, with its open plan structure, will influence the choice of the colour temperatures and the strength of the light fixture you need. At National Lighting, we have created a handy guide with tips and inspiration on how to light up your office the right way.

Tip #1 – The more Lumens the better

Lighting is all about lumens, but what are lumens? I hear you ask. It’s simple; lumens are the way to find out how bright a light bulb/integrated LED lamp is. And if you are looking for the perfect light for your office, considering lumens is the key to creating the best office lighting scheme.

Lumens definition: ‘the SI unit of luminous flux, equal to the amount of light emitted per second in a unit solid angle of one steradian from a uniform source of one candela.‘

Thus in short… More Lumens equals more light.

Use this chart to determine and to choose the best lighting for your office. By choosing the right light output for your office, you ensure that your employees can work comfortably, as having a very low light source can result in having an unnecessary strain on the eyes. Having the right lumen will in turn help with concentration and productivity amongst your colleagues.

Tip #2 – Choosing the right Colour Temp

As previously mentioned in my article on ‘Finding the right Colour Temp for your Home‘, people tend to choose a low colour temperature when they are looking to create a cosy, warm and welcoming aesthetic. However, in offices – productivity takes precedence. That is why when you are choosing the colour temperature to use for the office, people tend to opt for a high temp ranging between 3900k to 5800k (cool to daylight white). It has been scientifically proven that people work better and study better when working under a cool white light. Therefore, when lighting up your new office space, consider purchasing a fixture with a Cool White Colour Temperature, ideally between 4000-4500K

Tip #3 – Let there be diffused light

It can be snug having some dark shadows in a space within your home, but this cannot be said for an office. Office spaces, by contrast, need to be lit equally throughout. That is why Battens, Anti Corrosives and Ceiling Panels are used so frequently within these spaces. These lights are designed especially to not cast light beams towards one direction, instead, they cast a diffused light that is spread throughout a space. Making them perfect for an office environment. The following graph shows in more detail how a diffuser works:

Tip #4 – Go LED

Next, and apologies as we have touched on this before, at National Lighting we are big on saving on your energy bill. When choosing your next lighting structure for an office renovation, switch to a more energy-saving LED lamp/fixture. Allowing you to not only save some money on your future bills – but also to benefit from great LED lighting quality, technological developments, and a longer lamp life. When compared to a halogen, LEDs last on average up to 10 years longer, helping you to avoid having to change them every two years or so.

Check out some of our most popular commercial fixtures for offices:

Anti-corrosive REEVE Connect

The Reeve Connect is a self-contained, budget friendly, LED batten. This anti-corrosive fitting is IP65 rated and benefits from the ability to be linked together. A maximum of 12 can be linked together. This fitting is ideal where space for power feeds are scarce.

OXXO and T8 LED tubes

The Oxxo is a range of LED tube ready fittings. This IP20 version is constructed from steel, making it sturdy and reliable. Boasts double end supply, making installation easier. Available in various lengths in single or twin.

What makes this fixture even better is that you can also purchase a T8 replacement tube. This tube boasts a high lumen output of 2000 lumens and is the ideal choice to be fitted into our Oxxo products. Check out various sizes on our online to meet your office needs.

Anti-glare UGR19 TITAN Ceiling Panel

The Titan Pro backlit 40W UG4 LED panel in cool white (4000k) offers superior light distribution and proven reliability with low decay and a long lifespan. The Pro panels have a white painted steel body, unique backlit LED module with high-efficiency optical design to eliminate bright and black spots, as well as an opal diffuser suitable for use in 15mm or 24mm standard exposed grid ceilings that does not discolour (yellow) over time.

The Titan Pro boasts a UGR19 rating and a 120 degrees beam angle, keeping glare and discomfort to a minimum.

Making the Titan an ideal lighting solution for offices. Each Pro panel is TPB rated and comes complete with our new innovative fast-fix loop-in loop-out integrated driver, saving valuable time on installation. Various accessories, emergency conversion kits, colour temperatures and sizes are available in the range.

Tip #5 – In case of an Emergency

To sign off, do not forget to add some emergency downlight to your office. They might not be the first thing you think of when designing your workspace, but they play a valuable part within any office. At National Lighting, we have a great range of LED emergency lighting products available. Whether you are looking for emergency exit signs, emergency lighting kits or emergency luminaries; you are sure to find what you are looking for on nationallighting.co.uk