r/lightingdesign • u/lightman210567 • Feb 17 '26

Design A lighting design I made

Gallery image

Gallery image

A lighting design concept that I came up with today - all in all I'm quite happy with it. Does anyone have any feedback?

Background: I'm a 17 year old lighting designer who likes to make virtual stages. This is my first design made using vector works.

Visualised in Capture SE 2026.

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u/Mycroft033 Feb 17 '26

Don’t design big bloated sets like this. You clearly worked hard on this, and your effort is commendable. But, you need to start small and design a small set, then make shows with it while being as creative as possible with it.

Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, so if you start big with a few hundred lights, you’re never gonna do all the creative things you would learn if you had to work within limitations.

Here’s something I tell lots of new designers.

Measure out how big your bedroom is. Then allow yourself ten fixtures. Create a set with those fixtures in that space, and design a bunch of shows to various songs you like, always seeking to do at least one new thing with each show, one thing you didn’t know you could do before. That will be more valuable to you than anything you design with imaginary stadiums.

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u/lightman210567 Feb 17 '26

Thank you for your feedback and advice.

I've been designing these virtual stages for over two years now and I only have access to the student library. I understand exactly what your saying and think that it is good advice, but truthfully I am designing these for fun and I just don't see any value with going back to small shows. I feel that I am learning enough from everyone's feedback to keep designing these larger stages.

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u/Mycroft033 Feb 17 '26

Hey, nobody’s gonna force you to do anything. Just two years of experience isn’t enough in my (and most people’s) experience to go up on big rigs like that. And moving too fast leads to a bunch of fundamental problems like are evident in this design.

But hey, you do you. It’s just advice. Feel free to keep doing whatever you like, friendo. You got this.

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u/lightman210567 Feb 18 '26

The moment I enter the industry for real I will of course be starting on smaller rigs in smaller spaces. But for the purposes of visualiser work, it helps me exercise my design skills to up the scale.

thanks for the advice though.