Jun,1 2024
Where it sits
Where a lamp sits is the difference between a room you use at night and a room you look at.
We design the arm to reach over a chair from a table beside it. That reach is wasted if the lamp is pushed into a corner to suit a photograph. Put the chair where you want to sit. Put the lamp next to that. Then see what is left.
The rest of the lighting in the room can be lower. This lamp has one job.
Light should fall on the page and miss your eyes.
A lamp behind the shoulder throws a shadow of your head onto the book. A lamp in front of you glares. Beside the chair, shade level with your eyes or a little below when you are seated, the light lands on the lap and the page.
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The lamp belongs beside the chair, not behind your head.
Leave a path past the cord.
The brass arm can reach. The cord still has to reach the wall without crossing the walk from the door to the seat. A cord across that line is the thing you will catch at night. Run it along the wall, or move the chair closer to the socket.
One lamp for the chair you actually sit in. A second lamp is for a second seat, or for the corner that is too dark to walk through. Matching pairs on either end of a sofa look finished and often leave the middle, where you sit, in shadow.
Height is the adjustment that matters. If the shade is above your eyes, you get glare on the far wall. If it is in your lap, you get a bright knee. Seat yourself, then move the arm.
The table under the lamp should take a cup without the base having to move. If the base and the cup are fighting, the table is too small for this lamp.
Beside the chair, shade at eye level when seated, cord along the wall. Sit down and read one page before you decide it is placed.
A lamp that only looks right from the doorway is in the wrong spot. The test is the chair.