Calling all lighting designers! It’s competition time.

Last year, WE-EF and Fagerhult held a successful competition challenging the design world to show their ingenuity and creativity in light. Using the Aristotle quote “The soul never thinks without an image” as a prompt, the task was to create a design projected in light that could be displayed as a mural on our London Southwark building.

We had so many wonderful entries, with the winner - Ingo Kalecinski from dpa lighting consultants – depicting the warm glow of a sunset in gorgeous gradient red with stark black buildings below.

"The west facing building facades that I often observe from my living room, reflecting the sunset against the already in darkness immersed eastern sky above them, inspired this proposal. Glazed facets that pick out this magical warm glow and turn into temporary beacons of light, dotted into the otherwise dark concrete jungle surrounding them. The idea is to capture this phenomenon of colour and the emotional uplift it provides." Ingo Kalecinski, DPA Lighting Consultants

This year, the competition is again underway but with a different theme. We’ll still be using a Gobo - short for goes before optics - in essence, a stencil which produces a light projection of an image on a surface.

Using our high-precision Profile Projector, equipped with a Gobo, we will again reproduce the winning graphic design onto the wall outside our office and display it for five months.

The light projection will fit exactly within the contours of the wall, ensuring no light spill and will be controlled via a Photon and motion sensor, with a timer to avoid energy consumption when the graphic will be either non-visible or no one is there to view it.

The design brief

This theme draws on the rich tradition of Día de los Muertos. In pre-Hispanic cultures, the dead were still members of the community, kept alive in memory and spirit and, during Día de los Muertos, they temporarily returned to Earth.

Inspired by this principle, your challenge is to “Illustrate your favourite memory that you would like to share with passers-by in Southwark.”

How to submit your entry

Please provide a single image within this template and include a 200-400 word supporting statement.

EPS or AI files are preferred due to their scalability, but TIFF and PSD will also work. Each graphic must be supplied using the CMYK colour model.

Full details of the competition and specification can be found in this briefing pack.

Submission deadline: 22nd September 2023.

The judging panel and process

There is a two-step judging process. Initially, each design will be reviewed in terms of technical compliance and feasibility of being re-produced via the Gobo projector. The second-phase involves the graphical element being reviewed by our judging panel, who will select the winning design.

The judges for this year’s competition are:

Jean-Cécil GAILLOT , WE-EF

Rama Gheerawo , Royal College of Arts

Graham Large , Lighting Designer

The winning graphic will be unveiled during our Day of the Dead social event on 2 November 2023. Further details to follow!

And now for some inspiration...

Good luck everyone!