Each year brings a profusion of new design trends for the home, and new lighting designs play a crucial part in setting style. Lighting manufacturers launch hundreds of products every January at Lightovation, the industry's largest trade show, where discerning showroom buyers select the most popular styles for their market. Here's a sneak preview of a few of the fabulous new lighting trends that will brighten up homes in 2020.
Natural Materials
Emphasis on nature and sustainability continues to trend in home design, as protecting the world's environment is top of mind. Organic, natural, and good-for-the-environment materials that are also inherently tactile, warm, and cozy are perfect for creating protected, serene, and calm interiors. Look for open-weave shades in natural fibers like rattan and wicker on pendants, chandeliers, and sconces. Environmentally ethical wood is likewise a logical choice for lighting designs, and lighting with details such as wooden bead swags are especially hot. Both genuine and faux stone and organically textured glass are seen as accents on fixtures or even used as the dominant material, infusing dimension and style into the piece.
Geometrics
From small to large, all sorts of geometric shapes in lighting add visual interest to ceilings and walls. While orbs, spheres, and other round and oval silhouettes have been popular for years, now they are joined by diamonds, hexagons, and squares in configurations that make a dramatic statement. Geometrically shaped lighting pairs well with popular designs in tile floors and backsplashes, or with furniture inlaid with geometric elements. For a cohesive finishing touch, add table and floor lamps that repeat the same shapes as the ceiling and wall lighting.
Finishes
Black is trending in home design, especially in kitchens where lighting with a black finish accents dark, painted cabinets. A chic neutral when used alone, black is mixed with gold, chrome, and copper to offer a bold presence in a room. Silver finishes are gaining in popularity, with subtle antique and softly shining silver leaf offering a new elegance to classic chandeliers and modern lighting silhouettes. And brass is back in a less glossy version of its former, nautically inspired, bright sheen.
Oversized Silhouettes
The popularity of open-floorplan homes means that lighting needs to make a statement so that it does not get lost in the space. Oversized fixtures – the bigger, the better - are the way to go. Hang large pendants in twos and threes over kitchen islands and dining tables. Dramatically sized pendants, chandeliers, and even large ceiling fans take center stage in living areas while helping to create a necessary division of space from the dining and kitchen areas.
Refined Industrial
Although still rooted in traditional warehouse style, industrial lighting is now lighter and more elegant, making it ideal for transitional and modern spaces. Metal frames are thinner and more sophisticated than earlier bulky, functional styles. The mechanical ingenuity of the Industrial Revolution inspires style elements like working pulleys that are incorporated into the lighting's design. Finishes are polished rather than raw, and lightly distressed wood interplays with metal for a look that is streamlined and modern.
For more inspiration on these trends, and to see all the latest lighting designs, visit your local ALA-member showroom.
Main article photo by Quoizel
Second photo by Arteriors
Third photo by Fredrick Ramond