About This Course: Learn Night Light with Janet Lennox Moyer
It gets dark every night. Using landscape lighting, we have the ability to make residential and commercial outdoor spaces visually comfortable at night. This collection of ten sessions, available as a set or individually, provides the groundwork necessary for lighting designers to create safe and pleasing night environments. The specifics and intricacies of landscape lighting differ from other types of lighting. By looking at the science and art of lighting, how humans perceive light, and how we use light to guide people through nighttime landscape spaces, this program will elevate understanding and expand creativity.
This program will open designers’ eyes to better harness the possibilities light offers. Armed with lighting tools and techniques to create effects that produce useable, sustainable night systems, Janet Lennox Moyer shares multitudes of details she has learned over 45 years in the field.
LED technology has vastly changed how we build lighting designs, but the basic tools have remained the same. And while we don’t want to take steps backward, this course will remind us of everything we knew before technology shifted, so that we can use this information to learn to produce better night spaces across our globe.
Our goal is to liberate those who are starting out in the lighting industry and want to elevate their work beyond the scope of basic lighting designs and to support those without any formal training who have been instinctively creating unique lighting environments using some of the practices we will discuss. The purpose of this documentary project is to provide lighting designers a proven and scientific system to implement and execute for every lighting design project they undertake.
Whether you are looking for a career or are out to change the world, and as the demand for trained lighting designers has grown, there are more career paths than ever available to you. Jan’s students have gone on to serve in many industries and thrive in companies because of their distinguished and varied skills. This challenging curriculum has received national recognition because of Jan’s prestigious background.
Watch the Course Trailer:
Video will open in a new tab.
Course structure and resources:
Each of the ten individual sessions (featuring a video, workbook, and quiz) can be completed at your own pace. We recommend downloading the workbook for each session before watching the corresponding video. As you watch the videos, the workbook can be used as a guide to the concepts covered in the session. Utilize the workbook, and your own notes and observations to take the quiz for each session. Upon successful completion of the quiz at the end of each session (7/10 correct is passing, and you have unlimited attempts), you will unlock the next session in the course. Each session must be watched in order, but once you've completed one, you can revisit it as many times as you'd like to.
To complete the course:
Activate Session 1. Download the workbook, watch the video in its entirety, and pass the accompanying quiz.
After each completed (passed) quiz, move on to the next module by clicking BACK TO PACKAGE and activating the next session in order.
Repeat the process of activating, viewing the session, downloading the workbook, viewing the video, and completing the quiz.
After completing session 10, a CEU certificate of completion (10 CEUs / AIA LUs) will be available for immediate download.
Session Themes:
Session 1: Composition Elements
Session 2: Creating a Sense of Depth
Session 3: Lighting Structures and Buildings
Session 4: Lighting Art
Session 5: Lighting Objectives and Expression
Session 6: Plant Lighting Guidelines
Session 7: View Out Windows and/or Across Garden
Session 8: How Light Stimulates the Human Eye/Brain
Session 9: Using Shadows
Session 10: Lighting Water Features
Rather than sticking light fixtures here and there, we are provided the opportunity through the design tools of composition to create a beautiful scene through our windows; to provide our clients with a comfortable patio or outdoor room to relax in; and to design public gathering spaces that reveal the beauty of our local landscapes. This session looks at the issues of revealing night spaces and using design tools to create a stable composition.
Key Concepts in Session 1:
Understand the site and the client
Imagine the scene completed
Decide what is to be revealed and what should remain hidden in the night darkness
Organizing the visual elements
Using light to direct view
Consider formal versus informal composition
Janet Lennox Moyer, FIALD, AOLP COLD
Lighting Designer, Founder of ILLI
Jan began her lighting design career in 1976. She began specializing in landscape lighting in the mid 1980s and wrote the essential book used around the world, The Landscape Lighting Book, first released in 1992 and now in its third edition (Wiley, 2013). Over her career, she has worked on projects large and small, from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first home in Washington, DC, to winery caves, entertainment gardens, and botanical gardens.
Jan has taught lighting design since undergraduate school at UC Berkeley, Rutgers, and the Lighting Research Center, among others. She founded the International Landscape Lighting Institute (ILLI), a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization that provides landscape lighting education classes in the U.S. and abroad.
Jan has written countless articles and been included in multiple books on lighting. Her husband, George Gruel, produced a book of Jan’s lighting projects called She Paints with Light to help people visualize landscape lighting. Currently, she is producing a set of 20 videos with Garden Light LED for a new educational platform called Learn Night Light. In addition, she has begun work on a full-color design book, The Art of Landscape Lighting: A Designer’s Companion, which will provide inspiration for designers through her learnings over more than 45 years of lighting design. It is scheduled for a fall 2021 release.
Light has the ability to make a space feel larger or smaller depending on how layers of light are introduced. This session will look at using light level hierarchy to manipulate the appearance and feeling of a space.
Key Concepts in Session 2:
Varying light level to expand or contract space
Lighting the scene's boundary or background
Creating an outdoor room
Using brightness variation as hierarchy to provide visual balance
Janet Lennox Moyer, FIALD, AOLP COLD
Lighting Designer, Founder of ILLI
Jan began her lighting design career in 1976. She began specializing in landscape lighting in the mid 1980s and wrote the essential book used around the world, The Landscape Lighting Book, first released in 1992 and now in its third edition (Wiley, 2013). Over her career, she has worked on projects large and small, from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first home in Washington, DC, to winery caves, entertainment gardens, and botanical gardens.
Jan has taught lighting design since undergraduate school at UC Berkeley, Rutgers, and the Lighting Research Center, among others. She founded the International Landscape Lighting Institute (ILLI), a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization that provides landscape lighting education classes in the U.S. and abroad.
Jan has written countless articles and been included in multiple books on lighting. Her husband, George Gruel, produced a book of Jan’s lighting projects called She Paints with Light to help people visualize landscape lighting. Currently, she is producing a set of 20 videos with Garden Light LED for a new educational platform called Learn Night Light. In addition, she has begun work on a full-color design book, The Art of Landscape Lighting: A Designer’s Companion, which will provide inspiration for designers through her learnings over more than 45 years of lighting design. It is scheduled for a fall 2021 release.
Structures—trellises, pavilions, fences/walls, and buildings—represent one or more elements in a landscape that need to be integrated into the overall scene. Lighting can interpret the relationship of masses, planes, and building detail. We can choose to emphasize or redefine the appearance to support the overall visual composition. This session will look at various options and techniques.
Key Concepts in Session 3:
Using light to state a building's purpose
What makes bad building lighting
Lighting around the building for context
Using the building as a mounting source
Look at multiple techniques for massive structures
Introducing color and/or drama on buildings
Lighting techniques to enhance texture
Using trees as a mounting source
Silhouetting for emphasis
Grazing versus Washing a surface
Janet Lennox Moyer, FIALD, AOLP COLD
Lighting Designer, Founder of ILLI
Jan began her lighting design career in 1976. She began specializing in landscape lighting in the mid 1980s and wrote the essential book used around the world, The Landscape Lighting Book, first released in 1992 and now in its third edition (Wiley, 2013). Over her career, she has worked on projects large and small, from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first home in Washington, DC, to winery caves, entertainment gardens, and botanical gardens.
Jan has taught lighting design since undergraduate school at UC Berkeley, Rutgers, and the Lighting Research Center, among others. She founded the International Landscape Lighting Institute (ILLI), a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization that provides landscape lighting education classes in the U.S. and abroad.
Jan has written countless articles and been included in multiple books on lighting. Her husband, George Gruel, produced a book of Jan’s lighting projects called She Paints with Light to help people visualize landscape lighting. Currently, she is producing a set of 20 videos with Garden Light LED for a new educational platform called Learn Night Light. In addition, she has begun work on a full-color design book, The Art of Landscape Lighting: A Designer’s Companion, which will provide inspiration for designers through her learnings over more than 45 years of lighting design. It is scheduled for a fall 2021 release.
Art can serve multiple purposes in landscape lighting. This session will discuss potential roles that art can take and the relation to other elements in the overall visual composition. Techniques for art can vary as much as the art. We will provide guidelines to help you plan how to assess and what techniques to consider.
Key Concepts in Session 4:
Art’s function in a lighting scene
Understanding art’s color and reflectance
Using darkness for emphasis
Using art for visual destination
Showing detail for realism
Techniques for ‘sets’
Treating multiple versus single sculptures
When to use color on art
Technique for lighting black or very dark art
Position and Use of Sculpture in lighting scenes
Planning for art not in place yet
Integrating Wall Art
Remember composition
Janet Lennox Moyer, FIALD, AOLP COLD
Lighting Designer, Founder of ILLI
Jan began her lighting design career in 1976. She began specializing in landscape lighting in the mid 1980s and wrote the essential book used around the world, The Landscape Lighting Book, first released in 1992 and now in its third edition (Wiley, 2013). Over her career, she has worked on projects large and small, from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first home in Washington, DC, to winery caves, entertainment gardens, and botanical gardens.
Jan has taught lighting design since undergraduate school at UC Berkeley, Rutgers, and the Lighting Research Center, among others. She founded the International Landscape Lighting Institute (ILLI), a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization that provides landscape lighting education classes in the U.S. and abroad.
Jan has written countless articles and been included in multiple books on lighting. Her husband, George Gruel, produced a book of Jan’s lighting projects called She Paints with Light to help people visualize landscape lighting. Currently, she is producing a set of 20 videos with Garden Light LED for a new educational platform called Learn Night Light. In addition, she has begun work on a full-color design book, The Art of Landscape Lighting: A Designer’s Companion, which will provide inspiration for designers through her learnings over more than 45 years of lighting design. It is scheduled for a fall 2021 release.
Landscape lighting has three basic objectives—safety, security, and aesthetics. Creating a pleasing environment out of the darkness requires effective expression of visual design. This session will address how to start making decisions and introducing light to create your desired lighting effects.
Key Concepts in Session 5:
Primary objectives: safety and security through aesthetic treatment
How light provides a sense of safety
How light addresses security
Using aesthetic approach
Providing "view” out a window to complete an interior space
Understanding "quality" of lights
Soft versus harsh light as a tool
Using color to create environment
Understanding how even and uneven balance affect a scene
Understanding visual cohesion and how to create it
Janet Lennox Moyer, FIALD, AOLP COLD
Lighting Designer, Founder of ILLI
Jan began her lighting design career in 1976. She began specializing in landscape lighting in the mid 1980s and wrote the essential book used around the world, The Landscape Lighting Book, first released in 1992 and now in its third edition (Wiley, 2013). Over her career, she has worked on projects large and small, from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first home in Washington, DC, to winery caves, entertainment gardens, and botanical gardens.
Jan has taught lighting design since undergraduate school at UC Berkeley, Rutgers, and the Lighting Research Center, among others. She founded the International Landscape Lighting Institute (ILLI), a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization that provides landscape lighting education classes in the U.S. and abroad.
Jan has written countless articles and been included in multiple books on lighting. Her husband, George Gruel, produced a book of Jan’s lighting projects called She Paints with Light to help people visualize landscape lighting. Currently, she is producing a set of 20 videos with Garden Light LED for a new educational platform called Learn Night Light. In addition, she has begun work on a full-color design book, The Art of Landscape Lighting: A Designer’s Companion, which will provide inspiration for designers through her learnings over more than 45 years of lighting design. It is scheduled for a fall 2021 release.
Plants take many shapes and sizes and fill many roles in landscape design and landscape lighting. It is critical to understand plants and how they change over time. This session will discuss plant characteristics and the multitude of ways to light them to express their beauty as part of the scene.
Key Concepts in Session 6:
Understanding the characteristics of the plants to be lit
A plant's role in the composition
Three basic tree-lighting techniques
Producing three-dimensional appearance
Understanding fixture location to show plants best
Importance of knowing the genus, species, & variety of all project plants
Learning how tree shape changes as the tree matures
Issues regarding deciduous and evergreen trees
Importance of downlighting for plants
Understanding what uplighting, downlighting, and the combination does for plants
Dense versus open canopies
The importance of pruning for plant lighting
How time can change a plant's role
Janet Lennox Moyer, FIALD, AOLP COLD
Lighting Designer, Founder of ILLI
Jan began her lighting design career in 1976. She began specializing in landscape lighting in the mid 1980s and wrote the essential book used around the world, The Landscape Lighting Book, first released in 1992 and now in its third edition (Wiley, 2013). Over her career, she has worked on projects large and small, from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first home in Washington, DC, to winery caves, entertainment gardens, and botanical gardens.
Jan has taught lighting design since undergraduate school at UC Berkeley, Rutgers, and the Lighting Research Center, among others. She founded the International Landscape Lighting Institute (ILLI), a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization that provides landscape lighting education classes in the U.S. and abroad.
Jan has written countless articles and been included in multiple books on lighting. Her husband, George Gruel, produced a book of Jan’s lighting projects called She Paints with Light to help people visualize landscape lighting. Currently, she is producing a set of 20 videos with Garden Light LED for a new educational platform called Learn Night Light. In addition, she has begun work on a full-color design book, The Art of Landscape Lighting: A Designer’s Companion, which will provide inspiration for designers through her learnings over more than 45 years of lighting design. It is scheduled for a fall 2021 release.
Night lighting creates outdoor spaces and environments for us to experience. This session will look at how lighting reconnects us to our gardens at night by providing views through windows. It will also discuss thinking about views from one area in a garden to another and using light level hierarchy to guide people into and through garden spaces.
Key Concepts in Session 7:
View connects us to our garden after dark
Light outside windows makes interior spaces feel larger
Anything visible outside a window can be lit, regardless of location
View across a garden - from one area to another
Understanding the importance of arrival - getting guests to the front door, comfortably
Large sites require decisions about importance, as do small sites
Providing light guides to help people navigate spaces
Janet Lennox Moyer, FIALD, AOLP COLD
Lighting Designer, Founder of ILLI
Jan began her lighting design career in 1976. She began specializing in landscape lighting in the mid 1980s and wrote the essential book used around the world, The Landscape Lighting Book, first released in 1992 and now in its third edition (Wiley, 2013). Over her career, she has worked on projects large and small, from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first home in Washington, DC, to winery caves, entertainment gardens, and botanical gardens.
Jan has taught lighting design since undergraduate school at UC Berkeley, Rutgers, and the Lighting Research Center, among others. She founded the International Landscape Lighting Institute (ILLI), a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization that provides landscape lighting education classes in the U.S. and abroad.
Jan has written countless articles and been included in multiple books on lighting. Her husband, George Gruel, produced a book of Jan’s lighting projects called She Paints with Light to help people visualize landscape lighting. Currently, she is producing a set of 20 videos with Garden Light LED for a new educational platform called Learn Night Light. In addition, she has begun work on a full-color design book, The Art of Landscape Lighting: A Designer’s Companion, which will provide inspiration for designers through her learnings over more than 45 years of lighting design. It is scheduled for a fall 2021 release.
Understanding how we see helps us know how to use light in our visual compositions. This session will look at the configuration of the eye, how the eye and brain interact, and the way we can best use light for human comfort and enjoyment.
Key Concepts in Session 8:
Understanding the makeup of the eye and its interaction with the brain
Role of the rods and cones
How the eye changes to see varying distance & how that is restricted with age
Normal field of view
Photopic, mesopic & scotopic vision light levels
How light level affects our color perception
Understanding light level variation and patterning in a space
Understanding physical obstacles in a night space
Using light to guide people through space
How glare impacts lit spaces
Additive versus subtractive color
Understanding color temperature and its interaction with objects
How light sources can vary based on their relationship to the blackbody locus
Understanding the variety of conditions of daylight
Light Sensitivity curve for humans and for plants
LED light and color production varies greatly from old technology sources
Janet Lennox Moyer, FIALD, AOLP COLD
Lighting Designer, Founder of ILLI
Jan began her lighting design career in 1976. She began specializing in landscape lighting in the mid 1980s and wrote the essential book used around the world, The Landscape Lighting Book, first released in 1992 and now in its third edition (Wiley, 2013). Over her career, she has worked on projects large and small, from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first home in Washington, DC, to winery caves, entertainment gardens, and botanical gardens.
Jan has taught lighting design since undergraduate school at UC Berkeley, Rutgers, and the Lighting Research Center, among others. She founded the International Landscape Lighting Institute (ILLI), a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization that provides landscape lighting education classes in the U.S. and abroad.
Jan has written countless articles and been included in multiple books on lighting. Her husband, George Gruel, produced a book of Jan’s lighting projects called She Paints with Light to help people visualize landscape lighting. Currently, she is producing a set of 20 videos with Garden Light LED for a new educational platform called Learn Night Light. In addition, she has begun work on a full-color design book, The Art of Landscape Lighting: A Designer’s Companion, which will provide inspiration for designers through her learnings over more than 45 years of lighting design. It is scheduled for a fall 2021 release.
My lighting partner, Michael Hooker, always said “Darkness is your friend.” It helps shape and define objects; it can hide unwanted elements; it can help join two areas. We will explore all we can do with shadows and darkness in our lighting.
Key Concepts in Session 9:
Using downlight to create shadowing in a scene
Shadows support three-dimensional shaping
How patterns affect a lighting scene
Using shadow to create interest
How seasonal changes in plants affects projected shadow patterns
Projecting patterns for a purpose
Differentiation in shadow affect from up lighting versus downlighting
Sculptures and the use of shadow
Using light/dark variation across a large tree canopy
Creating shadows to emphasize textured bark
Shadows can hide things in a lighting scene
Using darkness as a tool in a composition
Janet Lennox Moyer, FIALD, AOLP COLD
Lighting Designer, Founder of ILLI
Jan began her lighting design career in 1976. She began specializing in landscape lighting in the mid 1980s and wrote the essential book used around the world, The Landscape Lighting Book, first released in 1992 and now in its third edition (Wiley, 2013). Over her career, she has worked on projects large and small, from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first home in Washington, DC, to winery caves, entertainment gardens, and botanical gardens.
Jan has taught lighting design since undergraduate school at UC Berkeley, Rutgers, and the Lighting Research Center, among others. She founded the International Landscape Lighting Institute (ILLI), a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization that provides landscape lighting education classes in the U.S. and abroad.
Jan has written countless articles and been included in multiple books on lighting. Her husband, George Gruel, produced a book of Jan’s lighting projects called She Paints with Light to help people visualize landscape lighting. Currently, she is producing a set of 20 videos with Garden Light LED for a new educational platform called Learn Night Light. In addition, she has begun work on a full-color design book, The Art of Landscape Lighting: A Designer’s Companion, which will provide inspiration for designers through her learnings over more than 45 years of lighting design. It is scheduled for a fall 2021 release.
Water and electricity don’t play well together. The NEC has multiple requirements and restrictions based on the type of water body you are working with. We will look at how to approach water and what to be careful about in your design.
Key Concepts in Session 10:
Water and electricity don’t mix, lighting water is very difficult
Understanding light level contrast between water and surrounds
Importance of hiding electrical equipment from view
Creating a recessed trough to properly locate and protect lighting equipment
Understanding smooth and rough weir needs for lighting
Depth of water scatters and diminishes the effect of light
Types of underwater fixtures and how/when to use them
Importance of complete documents for water features
Importance of correct fixture location to actually create a lighting effect for water
Difference between up- and downlighting in water lighting
Using fiberoptic and LED
Importance of details to get the water lighting effect to work
Introducing "shore-scraping" and how and when to use it
Beauty of reflection on a still water surface
Janet Lennox Moyer, FIALD, AOLP COLD
Lighting Designer, Founder of ILLI
Jan began her lighting design career in 1976. She began specializing in landscape lighting in the mid 1980s and wrote the essential book used around the world, The Landscape Lighting Book, first released in 1992 and now in its third edition (Wiley, 2013). Over her career, she has worked on projects large and small, from the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first home in Washington, DC, to winery caves, entertainment gardens, and botanical gardens.
Jan has taught lighting design since undergraduate school at UC Berkeley, Rutgers, and the Lighting Research Center, among others. She founded the International Landscape Lighting Institute (ILLI), a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization that provides landscape lighting education classes in the U.S. and abroad.
Jan has written countless articles and been included in multiple books on lighting. Her husband, George Gruel, produced a book of Jan’s lighting projects called She Paints with Light to help people visualize landscape lighting. Currently, she is producing a set of 20 videos with Garden Light LED for a new educational platform called Learn Night Light. In addition, she has begun work on a full-color design book, The Art of Landscape Lighting: A Designer’s Companion, which will provide inspiration for designers through her learnings over more than 45 years of lighting design. It is scheduled for a fall 2021 release.
