Choosing Colour Temperature Lighting

Have you ever considered that your current surroundings may increase your chance of mood swings? Furthermore, has it always been a recurring problem for you to focus on work only to be discouraged and unmotivated most of the time? Here, psychological investigations and research have been able to determine that one of the affecting factors to a person’s job effectiveness is lighting. According to the International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics by Siti Zawiah and Zahari Taha, illumination affects a person’s work pleasure and comfort level. To provide more clarity on this matter, the colour temperature lighting or “warmth” level of lighting will be the basis of discussion in this article.

You can also refer to the article from Business School of London

The measurement of colour temperature is universally referred to in Kelvin (K). In identifying the “warmth” level of any light source, a scale reading between 1,000K and 7,000K determines the specific colour temperature. Here, colour temperatures below 4,000K is determined to produce a “warm” white light which results in a yellow or orange tint. Furthermore, colour temperatures on the opposite spectrum ranging from 4,000K and above produces a ‘cold’ colour temperature resulting in bluish tints.

For commercial use, different types of light bulbs available carry their own respective capabilities in producing the desired colour temperature. Halogen bulbs are only capable of producing warmer light temperatures while modern day LED lights are capable of producing light with higher degrees of Kelvin. The types of commercial light bulbs currently in practice can be viewed as below, starting with the lowest capability of producing colour temperature:

• Incandescent
• Halogen
• Fluorescent
• Compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL)
• Light-emitting diode (LED)

In identifying the types of bulbs available, you open up creative ideas of installing light sources in specific areas of your commercial space, and even in the office. Coming back to the effects of colour temperatures on people’s psychology, we can now properly determine the strength of light that we use for our daily use at the workplace. Hence, here are a few tips to bear in mind:

1) Reception Area

This is the area where your customers, as well as your staff will be actively visiting, daily. Hence, a warm to neutral white colour (2,700K to 3,800K) is always suitable to provide the light ambiance to promote social interactions and activities while also maintaining a good atmosphere and mood throughout.

2) Workstations

For workstations, you will require an environment where focus and contemplation becomes more engaging. In this regard, a colder light ambiance is more suitable for the task. Colour degrees around 3,500K to 4,800K provides this effect.

3) Meeting rooms

To promote productivity in the office, employees will need that ‘push’ to stimulate the senses. Herein, colder and brighter light colours are much more utilised. This effect starts around 4,000K to 6,000K.

Conclusively, the vividness of our light sources can directly affect our minds, mentalities and moods. In practice of all the suggestions shared above, you can always experiment on which works the best for the intended results.