DOES LIGHTING DESIGN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE? Glenn M. Johnson wowed a sold out crowd during his semnar 'The Art of Illumination; Residential Lighting Design' at th 2005 Design Northwest Conferance and Exposition in February. In case you missed it, the architectural lighting designer - whose client list reads like a Who's Who of Beverly Hills glitterati - is back with his take on the important role of the professional lighting designer.By Glenn M. Johnson Images Courtesy of Glenn Johnson LLC Twenty Three Years before the birth of Thomas A. Edison (the inventor of the incandescent lamp),Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (a German poet) made the following insightful observation: "The light is there, and colors surround us. However, if there were no light nor colors in our own eye, we wouldn't perceive such things outside of us." Feb. 26, 1824. Von Goethe Knew long before electric lighting sources had been invented, that only with light do colours surround us. It is now 2005 158 years since the birth of the incandescent lamp and just now lighting design is beginning to be recongized as an integral part of the modern design team for the built environment. There are really only four distinct design desciplines that revolve around any built environment: The Architect The Interior Designer The Lighting Designer The Sound, Video and Communications Designer These professionals with the gift of being able to see and feel in three dimensions, working in tandem within their own fields of expertise, laying in details, specifications coupled with proven products and practices and ultimately articulating the combination of their efforts into working drawings are the key to today's successful environments. This is also the only process that defines realistic product and installation budgets. With each discipline practising as professional team members, they should be able to communicate the intent of their designs, including budgets, renderings and project application photos, all backed up with solid buildable architectural drawings, details and specifications.This process becomes exciting, maximizes the client's complete understanding of their project and ultimately tickles all of the senses of anyone entering this extraordinary well-planned and thoughtfully designed environment. Now, it should not be shocking to anyone that each artistic and critical design member needs to be compensated for his or her area of experise. In practising professional lighting design for the past 27 years with project locations worldwide, I've discovered the underlying consensus still seems to be the same: that silly unwritten rule that only the Architect and Interior Designers are