You’ve worked hard to create beautiful, distinctive jewelry designs—now it is time to show them off! Once you have determined the best way to display and arrange your pieces in a retail setting or jewelry show, you’ll want to think about what kind of lighting you need to make your work shine.
Read our blog to learn more about optimal jewelry display lighting and jewelry store lights to make sure your pieces are ready to dazzle your customers.
Considerations to Make When Choosing Lighting Options
When thinking about what kind of lighting is right for your store or display, you’ll want to keep a few things in mind:
- The amount of natural light available
- The primary materials you work with
- Lighting color
- The shape of your space, including ceiling height
- Case lighting
We’ll walk you through the various considerations you need to make depending on the size and shape of your space, your primary retail display goals, how you use cases to display your pieces, and what kinds of materials you primarily work with.
Picking the Best Overhead Lighting
When thinking about jewelry display lighting options, you’ll have to take into account the size and shape of your retail environment. Do you have a lot of space? Or are you working in a smaller shop? Are your ceilings high or low? How much natural light do you get? All of these factors play into what kind of overhead lighting will be best for you.
Overhead lighting creates the foundation for your space, and selecting the proper lighting option will be crucial in reducing shadows and glare, both of which can make it difficult to distinguish details and minimize the shine of your pieces. For high ceilings, spotlights may be a good option, as they provide focused light that will hit your cases and displays precisely. A narrow flood light is a strong option for low ceilings, as they are easy to point and control, helping you manage the angles in your store space.
Types of Bulbs and Lighting Options
For jewelry display lighting and jewelry store lighting, you’ll need to make decisions regarding halogen lighting versus other types of bulbs. Halogen lamps are popular for jewelry retail spaces, as they can create more light than incandescent lights, but there are a few downsides to halogen. The first is that halogen lights tend to emit a more yellow-tinged light, which can affect the way the colors of your pieces present. Secondly, halogen lights become very hot as they burn, which can actually affect the temperature of your shop, and potentially add to climate control and cooling costs.
LED lights are another popular option. LED lights generally offer plenty of brightness, and the quality and coloration of LEDs won’t affect the appearance and coloration of your pieces the way halogen options can. But, LEDs are generally more expensive than other lighting options. However, they can be a great investment. LED lighting often uses 20%–25% of the energy compared to traditional incandescent bulbs, and can last 15 to 25 times longer.
Of course, the best return on your lighting investment may come in the form of higher jewelry sales. The standard LED light is 5500 Kelvin, which is bright enough to make diamonds and other gemstones shine, without providing an overwhelming amount of light that will make it hard to distinguish the facets and details of a stone or a metal.
Ensure Lighting Is Consistent
Another factor to consider is lighting consistency: when thinking about jewelry display lighting and jewelry store lighting, make sure all aspects of your space are equal. That means checking that all of your bulbs are the same color and brightness, so that your customer has a uniform experience browsing the store, and no one area of the space feels cooler or dimmer than another.
You will also want to make sure that your lighting placement is consistent. The best lighting will shine directly into a display or case, allowing pieces to sparkle brightly both inside and outside of the case. Lighting that comes from behind a case or behind a display will not help show off your pieces and can create unwanted shadows.
How to Select Lighting for Jewelry Cases
Once you resolve which type of overhead lighting is best for you, you’ll want to think about how to light your jewelry cases, if you plan on using them. LED strip lights offer the same benefits of LED overhead lights—low burning temperature, quality white light—and are a flexible, unobtrusive choice for case lights. Strip lighting is a great way to illuminate small spaces and will offer a crisp light that will help you show off your best work and most precious pieces.
Fluorescent lights, in the form of fluorescent tube lighting, have long been used as the industry standard for case lighting but may not be the best option. While fluorescent lights are inexpensive and don’t have the same coloration issues as halogen lights, fluorescent lights are known to flicker and fade within the first 100 hours of use. When it comes to case lighting, we recommend LED lights for reliability and quality.
Lighting According to Material
Most of the advice above applies to diamond and gemstone jewelry, which requires bright, direct light to show off its sparkle. But, if you work mostly with metals, you can consider other lighting options that help enhance the look and quality of these materials. Gold and copper, for example, is best shown off in a warmer white light, which will enhance the subtle glow of these metals. Silver, on the other hand, can look better under a cooler white light, which emphasizes its sparkle and shine.
And of course, always remember that one of the goals of jewelry display lighting is to enhance the customer experience. Consistent, quality lighting will help your customer make an informed decision about the piece they’d like to buy and will help your jewelry look its absolute best. While lighting costs can occasionally be intimidating, remember that good lighting isn’t just about visuals—it’s going to be one of your best marketing tools.
