The Art of Lighting Design with Sally Storey – a Create Academy course not only for beginners

With over 30 years of experience in lighting design, Sally Storey is one of the UK’s best-known lighting experts. Specialising in architectural lighting for luxury residential and hotel projects, Sally has written four acclaimed books on the topic and now launches her first ever online video course with Create Academy.

‘Learn the Art of Lighting Design’ follows Sally at both home and at the John Cullen Lighting Experience Centre as she guides followers through lighting considerations for a range of different rooms and outside spaces. Designed for complete novices and also for those with an interest to gain a greater understanding of the role of a lighting designer, the course launched in January 2025 on createacademy.com

“Light is intangible, yet it is amazing as it governs how we perceive everything. It’s the only thing that can change a space at the flick of a switch and I’ve always wanted to be able to tell people how to use it and how to understand it properly,” explains Sally. “It’s very easy when you’re starting on an interiors project to get hold of textile samples and paint swatches to put together for the final effect, but it’s impossible with lighting because its all around us, it’s not specific but has a huge impact.

So, with this course I’m hoping to explain how it works and give you a visual vocabulary to understand what different lighting can do – which film makes possible. Even understanding the difference between a 10 degree beam as opposed to a wide beam light will make a huge difference to any space. If you’re interested to learn yourself, or you’re going to be working with architects and interior designers, this course will help you really understand what lighting your room will need.”

Including over four hours of detailed video learning broken down into easy-to-follow bite-sized lessons, Sally begins with an overview of how lighting technology has changed throughout the ages and highlights the array of options that are now available to us. She continues to break down the fundamentals of lighting design for different spaces looking at ambient, task and accent options in detail, followed by an in-depth module that works through how Sally approaches a brief and takes us through the planning stages of a project.

The course then follows Sally on a visit to the John Cullen Experience Centre in London where a specialist lighting pod and variety of room and garden sets allow her to easily showcase the variety of lighting options and effects that can be achieved. From wall washes and up-lighting, to architectural accent lighting and sculptural framing, Sally shows lighting theory in action and how it will bring character and drama to a space.

Each lesson then looks at lighting options for different rooms – kitchen, bathroom and living – before Sally then invites us into her London and country homes to show how she has implemented this into her own indoor and outdoor spaces.

The course also includes a variety of case study lessons in which Sally highlights different projects for both traditional and contemporary buildings, allowing learners to see how they can translate ideas into their own spaces.

A series of downloadable workbooks accompanies each lesson, containing key takeaways along with helpful resources. With no fixed start date or time, learners are able to watch – and rewatch – the course whenever, wherever and on whatever device they want. All courses are fully subtitled too.

‘Learn the Art of Lighting Design’ with Sally Storey will be available now at createacademy.com and costs £97 I $127, or is available as part of Create Academy’s subscription all-access option priced at £240p/a I $306p/a which gives access to its full course catalogue across gardening, interiors, craft and food & drink.

DISCOVER A BRITISH LIGHTING BRAND YOU PROBABLY DON’T KNOW YET HERE.