types of outdoor lighting fixtures
Dazzle Lighting Co installs a wide variety of outdoor lighting fixture styles depending upon the desired effect. We sometimes refer to these fixtures as if our clients know exactly what we’re talking about, but we know that isn’t always the case! We’ve complied this list to help you out.
While reading these descriptions, please keep one very important thing in mind: one of Dazzle Lighting Co’s design principles is to ensure that fixtures themselves are unobtrusive – ideally you’ll see the subtle effects of well-placed lighting fixtures, not the fixtures themselves.
Uplights
Up lights, (or bullet lights, as they’re sometimes called) are one of the most common fixtures used in outdoor lighting. Up lights are available in many different styles and finishes, but they’re usually somewhat hidden in landscaping beds so they’re mostly unseen.
Path Lights
Path lights are most often used along paths or walkways, but can also be used to define the edges of landscaping beds or softly illuminate large areas of landscaping beds with a low light source. Path lights are often the most visible fixtures in your entire lighting system, so it’s important that they reflect your style and your home’s architecture.
Flood Lights
Flood lights are most commonly used to “wash” a particular area – often a wall – with light. In fact, they’re often called wall-washers… but they’re not only used for walls.
Ledge Lights
Ledge lights – sometimes called hardscape lights – are used to softly illuminate low walls from the top down. They’re usually mortared in place under the capstones of walls.
Step Lights
Step lights are recessed into the risers or faces of steps and are usually used to enhance safety, but they can also be recessed into walls, as shown here.
Recessed Lights
Recessed lights – sometimes called in-grade lights – are installed in the ground. They can be set in concrete or hardscape areas, as well as in lawns or landscaping beds. They usually serve as up lights to illuminate architecture or trees, but are also used to define edges of pavement or walkways. When used in this manner, they are called marker lights.
Downlights
Downlights provide light from above, and can be placed in many different areas, including under gutter areas (soffits) and trees.
Pendants
Pendants are a form of downlights, but they’re usually suspended over a patio space by a chain or sometimes directly by wire.
Moon Lights
Moonlights are another form of downlights, but they’re almost always carefully positioned in trees with the goal of using the tree’s lower branches in order to create dramatic shadows on the ground. This moonlighting image shows the effect, rather than the fixture.
Sconce lights
Scone lights are installed on vertical surfaces including walls, posts, and columns. They can cast light up or down, or in both directions.
