A new publication by Byeongjin Kim in the Journal of the Korean Society for Emotion and Sensibility. This article delves into the stylistic factors of light and lighting, aiming to inspire innovative approaches in light design. Byeongjin’s research was motivated by the idea that our unique, everyday experiences with light remain underexplored. By tapping into light-related memories, he developed a comprehensive database and identified key stylistic factors. With support from ChatGPT for text generation, the study also incorporates illustrative images and captions that enhance its insights. Byeongjin Kim, a PhD candidate at the Color Lab, is currently advancing his dissertation on product lighting design methodology. Congratulations, Byeongjin!
Abstract
Lighting is increasingly utilized as a design element that provides emotional experiences and enhances affection. This study analyzes the emotions elicited by light and lighting and proposes new scales for the emotional characteristics of light. Through a survey, impressive experiences related to light were collected, and adjectives used to describe light from each experience were extracted. A survey conducted with 47 experienced lighting designers yielded 355 examples of impressive lighting experiences, from which 142 adjectives were extracted, and 43 were selected as evaluation criteria. Using this criteria, 23 participants evaluated 221 lighting examples. Factor analysis derived five factors: ‘Mystique’, ‘Naturalness’, ‘Excitement’, ‘Elegance’, and ‘Smartness’, each composed of various adjectives representing diverse emotional characteristics of lighting. The results shall provide guidelines for product and space designers to effectively convey desired emotions and affections through lighting.
