Lighting design through real spaces

I’m Nihal, a lighting designer and the creator of The Glow Recipe. I share practical guides, sketches, and observations about how light changes the way we experience a space.

This site is for designers, students, and anyone who wants to make more thoughtful lighting decisions. You’ll find explanations of lighting layers and controls, ideas for indoor and outdoor spaces, and reflections from places I visit.

My story started before lighting.

I began as an architect, learning how spaces are formed. Interior design taught me to think about how people feel inside those spaces. Then lighting changed the way I understood both.

I realised that the same place could become calm, dramatic, intimate, warm, or mysterious without changing the architecture at all. Only the light had changed.

Start here

• Understand ambient, task, and accent lighting.
• Explore a landscape lighting concept.
• See my observations from the National Museum of Qatar.

How I approach the content

I explain what I notice and why it matters for design. Personal observations are labelled as observations; technical guides include sources where they are needed. Photographs, sketches, and illustrative examples help connect the ideas to a real space.

Explore and connect

View projects and sketches or browse lighting books and resources.

Have a question or collaboration idea? Get in touch. You can also follow my Instagram.

Keep learning about light

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