You hear of Millenials all the time, and you hear of designs as a reflection of a generation’s style and preferences. The same rules apply to lighting designs too, which have evolved greatly in recent times to adapt and cater to Millenials’ changing preferences and style. Here are the latest trending lighting design themes for the Millenial generation!
Let’s face it. We’re currently living in a world that caters to millennial buyers. It’s 2020 and millennials already take up more than 25% of the world population. They are also currently the largest percentage of consumers in the world taking over baby boomer’s spot. Born between 1981 and 1996, these new generations are known for their love for technology, obsession in social media, and unconventional purchasing habits. Unlike the previous generation before them who are more into luxurious and branded items, this generation is prioritizing style that looks good and comes with a cheap price.
Millennials are big news for many industries particularly interior design, fashion, and real estate. This new generation and their penchant for high tech gadgets, flexible spaces, and sustainable home features are setting the standards when it comes to designing and manufacturing products. Every year designers, architects, and home builders are trying to study millennial’s personal styles and buying habits. Today, we’re going to explore some of the trending designs in the lighting industry—popularized by millennials.
Smart Lights
Millennials and technology. You can’t separate those two words apart. Growing up during the age of technology and the internet—millennials are spending almost every moment of their life surrounded with gadgets!
Photo by Jonathan Borba
Even in home decor and integral home pieces such as lighting you can see how technology is being used to create the connected lifestyle of millennials. The invention of smart home lighting has enabled millennials to control lighting via smartphone. You don’t need to get up from the bed to turn off the room light, you don’t even need to be at home too!—now, with an app, your smartlight can do that for you. Powered with GPS location technology and smart voice action features, smart lighting can turn your futuristic home dreams into reality.
Millennials love their technology so much that they would rather brag about how technologically advanced their lights and appliances are at home than where they got it from. These smart home lighting technologies are also preferred by millennials because of their innovative and money-saving features.
Tech features such as smart switches, motion sensor lighting, and automated lighting systems reduce energy waste at home. By programming when and on what occasion to turn your lights on using this technology, you’ll save more energy and avoid increasing your energy bill by forgetting to turn off your lights.
Minimalistic Lighting Designs
If the previous generation were obsessed with huge homes filled with accessories in every corner, millennials love the opposite. Popularly known as “minimalism”, the trend of owning less things and emphasizing functionality and utility are often the theme of most millennial interior home designs.
You can also see this theme in their furniture and lighting. When choosing lighting, millennials tend to pick lights that come in minimalistic and modern design. They love lighting that comes in clean forms. The beauty of these simple and minimalist lighting is often shown in fixtures with simple architectural forms. These kinds of lights are often picked over
elaborate embellishments. Examples include minimalist pendant chandeliers, table lamps, and floor lamps.
Photo by Hutomo Abrianto
For lighting colors soft golds and bronze are the number 1 choice of finish. Lighting that creates a sophisticated and warm ambience are the favorite for millennial modern home owners. You can see these houses with more wall sconces, chandeliers, and fixtures with less curves but more simple features. Millennials have also fallen in love with the colors grey and beige which is actually a great lighting color that can blend with almost any kind of decor.
Personalization
Millennials are into designs that cater to their specific needs. You can see this in their customized interiors and spaces that are purposely made to express their own identities.
Customized lighting is one way of adding their personal tastes to every room. Millennials love lights that add a touch of uniqueness to their space or set the right mood to the area. They are more likely to create personalized solutions for tricky spaces and lighting situations. Millennials love one-of-a-kind lighting that they can personalize.
A good example would be personalized digital lamps where you can set background colors, pictures, and texts. This also means they’re doing more DIY than the previous generation. Instead of buying from luxury brands, you can see millennials repurposing good pieces found in garage sales or vintage shops.
Photo by Ionut Vlad
Multi-Functionality
Living in small urban spaces means millennials have to prioritize functionality. Unlike the boomers, who had separate places to work and live, with the advent of remote work, millennials are more likely to work from home. As a result, millennials prefer homes and furniture with multi-functional designs.
Multi-functional lighting includes lights that not only illuminate but also become accents and focal points in the room. These decorative lights are very common in millennial homes which don’t have enough space for decors. Other multifunctional lights are less common but still very popular among millenials such as the wall lamps that can be hooked on walls and also serve as shelves. There are also sound LED lamps which can work both as a lamp and a speaker. And lamps that can work as book stands.
Photo by Evelyn Semenyuk
Energy-Saving and Environmental Friendly
Growing up during the increasing worldwide concern of Global Warming, millennials are showing more interest in lighting designs that have environmentally-friendly and low-energy consuming features.
Millennials are very much aware of the fact that incandescent bulbs can be very wasteful. This is why many manufacturers are switching to more efficient and environmentally friendly forms of lighting.
Lights that are made from eco-friendly materials, dimmable and ENERGY STAR certified are increasingly becoming popular. These lights are more efficient and last much longer plus they also come in a variety of colors and shapes.
Millennials are known for their love for lamps and fixtures made from recycled and natural materials. These lightings are also being used for decorative purposes which easily take attention in a space. You can see them being used over kitchen islands and dining tables.
Photo by Federica Giusti
Conclusion
Lightings as part of your overall home design, if done right, they can completely transform your home’s ambiance. So keep your home on-trend and in-style with the above latest trending lighting design themes for the Millenial Generation, and stay young (or at least young at heart) forever!
