I WORK from home, so good lighting is essential, especially in the soon-to-come short and dreary days. Illumination from a bad fixture can feel like a police interrogation — glaring and eye-straining.
Most of the lamps I checked out had color-corrected light that was (usually) cool and crisp, which makes hours spent working, doing crafts or writing a novel (or reading “The Lost Symbol”) more comfortable.
Many had built-in LED’s — light-emitting diodes — guaranteed to produce thousands of hours of light. The diodes are low-wattage and therefore energy efficient, and the light quality is a little bluish, slightly cooler, color-wise, than a compact fluorescent or halogen bulb, which give off a warm but still neutral glow.
The Element, a model from Humanscale, has a slight physique but plenty of power. It uses a single LED (the brightest I tried) with a neutral white color, clean and clear for reading.
The pool of light is large, which is optimal if you tend to spread out your work. It adjusts smoothly to almost any position with its bifurcated arm, and the head tilts and rotates.
The lamp stays relatively cool even after an hour of use, although the “fins” in the back become quite warm. But it falls into the task-only category, since you can’t adjust the brightness.
The Ribbon Lamp from Ecco Design uses cold-cathode fluorescent lighting tubes. Both the intensity and color temperature can be adjusted from flattering warm-yellow light for ambient use to a bluish glow for reading.
The brightest setting — a combination of the two — is neutral in color. The head swivels a bit, and the folding arm tilts 45 degrees up from being parallel to a desk.
The w084t, from the British designer Ilse Crawford, is huge, best for a large desk with a lot going on. The materials — a beechwood arm, a bonnet-like shade composed of a plastic-and-chalk composite, and a red fabric-wrapped cord — are unusual for this kind of lamp, but its beauty springs from the unexpected combination.
“It celebrates the inherent awkwardness of task lights,” as Ms. Crawford puts it.
The position of the lamp is adjusted by loosening wing nuts at the joints, and its innovative halogen bulb generates less heat than most halogens and incandescents (still, you don’t want to touch it); the shade gets merely warm. It can also be dimmed, to provide mood lighting once your work is done.
Available in five colors, for about $13, the Kvart from Ikea is cheerful and cheap. It’s a small gooseneck fixture that uses a 25-watt incandescent bulb (not included), producing light that is warm but not too yellow in color.
The base is heavy and does not slide when the light is adjusted, and the shade gets only slightly hot. My complaint is that you can’t point it straight down, so I found myself angling it away from me lest I get distracted by the glare.
Koncept’s Mini-Z has a series of LED bulbs along its thin arm, providing four levels of neutral white light. The light doesn’t spread out in a pool; it is more focused, ideal for small, tidy desks or needlework. It might also come in handy if you work in proximity to others and don’t want to annoy them (light-wise, anyway). It’s almost infinitely bendable and stays very cool to the touch.
Tab, from the British team Barber/Osgerby, is my favorite shape. Streamlined and made of powder-coated metal, like an old bank lamp, it is short but bright, and the light spreads surprisingly far. The arm rotates and the shade tilts, so adjusting it is easy. Its 40-watt halogen light gets extremely hot, as does the metal shade, but its design made me suspend my low-heat requirement.
To Illuminate Bright Ideas
I WORK from home, so good lighting is essential, especially in the soon-to-come short and dreary days. Illumination from a bad fixture can feel like a police interrogation — glaring and eye-straining.
Most of the lamps I checked out had color-corrected light that was (usually) cool and crisp, which makes hours spent working, doing crafts or writing a novel (or reading “The Lost Symbol”) more comfortable.
Many had built-in LED’s — light-emitting diodes — guaranteed to produce thousands of hours of light. The diodes are low-wattage and therefore energy efficient, and the light quality is a little bluish, slightly cooler, color-wise, than a compact fluorescent or halogen bulb, which give off a warm but still neutral glow.
The Element, a model from Humanscale, has a slight physique but plenty of power. It uses a single LED (the brightest I tried) with a neutral white color, clean and clear for reading.
The pool of light is large, which is optimal if you tend to spread out your work. It adjusts smoothly to almost any position with its bifurcated arm, and the head tilts and rotates.
The lamp stays relatively cool even after an hour of use, although the “fins” in the back become quite warm. But it falls into the task-only category, since you can’t adjust the brightness.
The Ribbon Lamp from Ecco Design uses cold-cathode fluorescent lighting tubes. Both the intensity and color temperature can be adjusted from flattering warm-yellow light for ambient use to a bluish glow for reading.
The brightest setting — a combination of the two — is neutral in color. The head swivels a bit, and the folding arm tilts 45 degrees up from being parallel to a desk.
The w084t, from the British designer Ilse Crawford, is huge, best for a large desk with a lot going on. The materials — a beechwood arm, a bonnet-like shade composed of a plastic-and-chalk composite, and a red fabric-wrapped cord — are unusual for this kind of lamp, but its beauty springs from the unexpected combination.
“It celebrates the inherent awkwardness of task lights,” as Ms. Crawford puts it.
The position of the lamp is adjusted by loosening wing nuts at the joints, and its innovative halogen bulb generates less heat than most halogens and incandescents (still, you don’t want to touch it); the shade gets merely warm. It can also be dimmed, to provide mood lighting once your work is done.
Available in five colors, for about $13, the Kvart from Ikea is cheerful and cheap. It’s a small gooseneck fixture that uses a 25-watt incandescent bulb (not included), producing light that is warm but not too yellow in color.
The base is heavy and does not slide when the light is adjusted, and the shade gets only slightly hot. My complaint is that you can’t point it straight down, so I found myself angling it away from me lest I get distracted by the glare.
Koncept’s Mini-Z has a series of LED bulbs along its thin arm, providing four levels of neutral white light. The light doesn’t spread out in a pool; it is more focused, ideal for small, tidy desks or needlework. It might also come in handy if you work in proximity to others and don’t want to annoy them (light-wise, anyway). It’s almost infinitely bendable and stays very cool to the touch.
Tab, from the British team Barber/Osgerby, is my favorite shape. Streamlined and made of powder-coated metal, like an old bank lamp, it is short but bright, and the light spreads surprisingly far. The arm rotates and the shade tilts, so adjusting it is easy. Its 40-watt halogen light gets extremely hot, as does the metal shade, but its design made me suspend my low-heat requirement.