Are you ready to be enlightened? Join us as we illuminate the subject of lighting design with our guest, Lu Phillips of Blingle Premier Lighting. Lu paints a vivid picture of how lighting can dramatically transform spaces, from landscape lighting that enhances the beauty of the evening to holiday lights that give life to festive occasions. We promise that, by the end of this episode, you'll see light in a completely different way!
Our exploration doesn't stop there. Venturing into the heart of Oklahoma, we uncover the artistry and innovation behind some of Blingle's most captivating projects. Have you ever wondered what a water tower would look like bathed in light? Or how an entire city block can be transformed into a themed holiday spectacle? Then this episode is a must-listen for you! Join us and Lu as we reveal how advances in technology and reduction in prices have made LED lighting an everyday marvel. Get ready to be inspired and discover how light can evoke emotions and bring magic into your spaces.
Follow BBB Serving Central Oklahoma on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn @BBBCentralOK
Are you ready to be enlightened? Join us as we illuminate the subject of lighting design with our guest, Lu Phillips of Blingle Premier Lighting. Lu paints a vivid picture of how lighting can dramatically transform spaces, from landscape lighting that enhances the beauty of the evening to holiday lights that give life to festive occasions. We promise that, by the end of this episode, you'll see light in a completely different way!
Our exploration doesn't stop there. Venturing into the heart of Oklahoma, we uncover the artistry and innovation behind some of Blingle's most captivating projects. Have you ever wondered what a water tower would look like bathed in light? Or how an entire city block can be transformed into a themed holiday spectacle? Then this episode is a must-listen for you! Join us and Lu as we reveal how advances in technology and reduction in prices have made LED lighting an everyday marvel. Get ready to be inspired and discover how light can evoke emotions and bring magic into your spaces.
Follow BBB Serving Central Oklahoma on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn @BBBCentralOK
Premiere, if done right, is all about integrity.
Speaker 2:It's Casey Farmer here with the Build, with BBB Podcast, here with Lou Phillips of Blingol. Welcome Lou to the Podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Casey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Do you want to tell our listeners today a little bit about Blingol? What brought you to the podcast today? What are some things that we'll be talking about?
Speaker 1:So Blingol is a new company in the state of Oklahoma. We've been here around since last November or so. We are the Oklahoma version of a national franchise. So the franchise, the franchise or is in Omaha, nebraska, and we are one of the more early franchisees for the company, so we're doing a lot of trailblazing actually here.
Speaker 2:Okay, and when I stumbled across the Blingol team it was by just complete happy accident. So for our listeners today who are tuning in, you may not have attended our Big Blue Bash in May, but we got blinged out, as I think you're, as Devin likes to call it, Devin's your founder CEO.
Speaker 1:He's the owner of the franchise. Okay.
Speaker 2:Owner of the franchise, devin is a hoot, but he came to us actually after we had started promoting Big Blue Bash and said, hey, I would love to bling out your event. And just by that simple little phrase I thought, wow, what does that mean? And that was your kind of first time doing that in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1:Well for an event, yes. So what you're bumping into is we have four different types of work that we do. The one you just spoke about was event lighting, but we ordinarily put a lot of effort into landscape lighting, exterior landscape lighting. We also do a version of a permanent holiday lighting that goes generally around a roof line, and then we do temporary holiday lighting, which is your typical Christmas string lights and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:But what happened in the Big Blue Bash is we got this opportunity to say listen, at the end of the day, we're lighting designers and we have all this great product, but at the end, I mean, you really just need to put it up and really experience it. So the Big Blue Bash was fun because we got a chance to actually carve out pieces of an office building and convert it to just this like party setting really, and we bathed the place in blue. And it was fun working with your team because there was a lot of excitement on what we were doing and how it was really sort of transforming the space, and that's really important because it really was for a residence and, in some cases, some of the commercial work we do. You have the building that you have, it has the paint that it has and whatever, but what we get to do is paint it all over again.
Speaker 1:We do, we did create something when the lights go out that really doesn't exist any other time and it's fun and it's. It could be really captivating, it could be magical. I mean that's if you think of Disneyland, right, you think of the twinkle you think of, like somehow they've been able to bottle magic and you can't really do that at your own house and I don't. You know, most people don't know why. Well, big part of it is the way you can play with light and we have we have such a great time as designers doing stuff that you, that is unexpected and it and it, just it just alters what you thought was possible inside an office space, as was the case with the big blue bash, but very often we do this with the exterior of just people's homes and just it just blows people away. What can be done?
Speaker 2:yeah, and I will say from my perspective, going into that, you know relationship with Blingle being an event coordinator, though I lead the marketing department that event falls under marketing and having very like no expectation for what it meant to like bling out an event or create that type of experience.
Speaker 2:You know, I'll say for anybody interested in doing that, it really changed the experience for our guests because people had been coming to big blue bash for years and years and I think that this was our sixth, third, I might be a fifth or sixth year we were hosting this event and it's gotten bigger and bigger each year. Now to the point to where we're, you know, thinking are we gonna have to go to a bigger space in the future, which is exciting? We love that. But the whole goal of it was to welcome people to our office and so when we had board members coming to visit our office and they've been to big blue bash in the past and they walked in and they were kind of blown away by the experience that you created with lights, I you know from my experience I couldn't recommend it enough because it really elevated an event that we had already set an expectation for and helped us rethink okay in the future. Then what do we need to do?
Speaker 1:we kind of talked a little bit about it when we were setting it up. So the idea of the event had its own merit, right, but the how you pull it off has a lot of creative potential. And so what we were talking about is, if you can, if you can employ the five senses, then you can create a layered experience. So the idea itself doesn't really have that. And we came in with the lighting and and it wasn't just lighting, we actually quarantined areas off and did, you know, pipe and drape, and you know we just changed the nature of the place. You had music, you had like, beer tasting right. So you had the taste and sound also there, right.
Speaker 1:So we're elevating and we're adding layer on top of layers so the thing actually becomes its own experience, like Disneyland can change your view from Tomorrowland into, you know, small world or whatever, right, right. So it's a very different experience and you're in the same physical space, pretty close, and in. In that sense, that's what we were doing. We were adding, we were giving you a chance to put a layer on top of an experience to really help flesh out the whole idea of what the blue bash could be and we we've talked a lot about event lighting but I don't want to like you briefly kind of touched on some of the different things that you do at blingle, can you tell me maybe about a project you're excited about?
Speaker 1:oh my gosh, things are getting really interesting and actually is interesting more on the side of the business. If you were to consider Oklahoma City and Tulsa, well, and much of the rest of the state, generally, it's fairly dark place. I mean, in my mind I have experience in San Francisco and LA and Seattle, denver. Those places are light, lit up, they're bright. Oklahoma City generally is fairly muted and we're actually interested in doing something about that, and so really the more interesting projects are turning out to be some of the more commercial stuff.
Speaker 1:I'm in a discussion with one of the little outlying towns on Route 66 about lighting their water tower, turning that into a beacon so that they can see it from the, from the free way. That's fun, that's crazy. Who would have thought about lighting a water tower? You know we're. We're also considering a big project to another little outlying city where they're trying to transform their Christmas holiday into a Victorian kind of theme and they they have people for the last few years dressing up their stage, carriage is going down the streets, all kinds of stuff, no lighting. So now we're trying to actually design a Victorian themed, muted, kind of like a period peace, to transform a whole city block. That's totally cool.
Speaker 2:And with lights. I think that maybe some of our listeners today don't know just what all you can do with lighting, which was so much fun to work with you on, because I didn't know how much you could do with lighting or what you could convey with lighting. It was a very small part of to me of something big that I was doing, but then I realized how much of an impact it could make.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you know, lighting is emotional. When you do it right, it really is quite emotional. What kills me as a lighting designer are street lights because they're indiscriminate. You know, if you're low quality, they just, you know, on top of a piece of pavement and when I'm trying to do something with a building, a street light will really hurt. But when you really can play with it, then a couple of things you want to do. You want to have a foundation of light.
Speaker 1:If you do a lighting design, then you're trying to take the darker areas and put a little bit of light there. It doesn't have to be, you know, the night sun, it just has to be allow it to take the shadows and the mystery out of a dark area. Two things happen there right away Safety and security. All of a sudden you're not tripping over the stairs or the steps and then you have security, because a lot of what happens in the dark areas is not so great, right? That's the whole point of that Then. Then you can play. When you have a foundational level of lighting, particularly in the landscape lighting, and then you add, say, christmas to it or Halloween to it or for the July to it, what you get is the extra light that you put on your house or your business starts. It's actually quite incredible.
Speaker 1:The light ends up looking much, much bigger than it actually is. You can take a couple of Christmas lights, but when they're on top of this fundamental this like foundational level of light, the Christmas lights explode. It's like they're the ones creating all of this scene and it turns out they have a big helper in the background because the foundational level of lighting design is already in place. It makes this scene come alive. And that's actually a trick that they did for Disneyland. I'm telling you they really invented a lot of what's amazing about the emotional impact of what lighting can do, and then the impact of the seasons, and in Big Blue Bash we wanted to bathe the thing with blue. It was pretty simple that way.
Speaker 1:But when you put twinkle in there and you're trying to tease out an emotion from a kid, maybe or a memory from an older adult about you know, you start to settle into these memories of what your life has been when it's been particularly poignant and there's a lighting component there Sunsets, sunrises, all that stuff. That's what people tend to remember when they think about their vacations. This is what I can play with. We did a recent project for a person in Edmund and he created his backyard as a resort and we did the lighting as if it were a resort. And now it's this place where he brings family and friends, only to be in the space because it's somehow separate from Oakland City. It feels like Hawaii for him in his backyard because of the layered approach and particularly what lighting can do after dark.
Speaker 2:So changing gears a little bit. My experience working with Blingle was communication in such a positive way and that's always important to me when I'm working on any type of event. But it was very clear to me very early on that running a solid business and ethical business is important to Blingle. Can you talk a little bit about why BBB accreditation is important to Blingle, what your standards are in the community, how you serve people in the community?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I actually appreciate you saying that. So the name that we would have given you when we applied was Blingle Premier Lighting. I serve as a general manager for this and when I have a 25-year history across the globe, when I took that on, I took the word premiere to mean something I didn't want to associate myself with, something that was shoddy or anything like that. So premiere to me connotes a lot of integrity Saying what you're going to do and then doing what you say. It connotes partnership. It connotes you can go to something like lows and buy a light, but it won't be what I have. You can install it yourself, but you can't do it like I can do. There is a maintenance aspect of it. So that means years down the road. What does premiere look like? When things start to suffer right, connections go bad or whatever, that becomes a service aspect. So the word premiere for me is everything. I wouldn't do this work without it. And then premiere, if done right, is all about integrity. It goes even deeper than that in our case, because our owner has a major disability. I think that makes us better, because he is who he happens to be. We rise to the level of what can be done inside a context of can't do it, shouldn't do it, whatever that is for people. We don't play that game and it promotes integrity, it promotes inclusion, it promotes premiere. If it ever deviates, you'll see me on a plane somewhere else because I won't play that game.
Speaker 1:But as it relates to businesses around the state, for example, we are pretty unique in that we cover the whole state of Oklahoma. We recently got a pretty big footprint in Tulsa. That was not something that was part of the original, but the need exists in Tulsa, just as in Oklahoma City. I think we're at the point where we're still really deeply exploring what can be done. When it comes to serving the community itself, we were very close to being involved in the big sculpture park project in Edmond. It unfortunately had some kind of issue and went away, but for us to actually donate time, products, maintenance, whatever it took to have that park actually become a fixture for the community turned out, was really in line with who we invented ourselves to be on day one.
Speaker 1:Who are you as a business? Why is it worth coming to work every day? All those kinds of questions we tackled really early and strategically and one of the things that we wanted to do right away is, I want to say Midtown, or say there are some mural works, for example, around the town, and we've thought right from the beginning what would it look like to light the murals after dark, to really bring that portion of town and the artistry of it out again sinking into the background? So it's not about blingles, showing off a piece of art on a mural, it's about the mural doing its work and then having this ability to translate what that could be into the evening transforms the mural, transforms the community.
Speaker 1:It's just dramatic that way. The sun sets every day and usually things disappear. And we have this chance and this is where the kind of the fun of it against him, with the community involvement to put to increase the artistry of the evening and it, you know, and different people need different things too. You know, if I'm worried about security and stuff, it's just a lot of light and you know, and it's pointed in certain areas, but almost in every case I try to bring out the beauty of the thing that we're trying to play with, you know, and it's really as unique as a thumbprint.
Speaker 2:But you do it so well.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you. Yeah, you know, and that would be you know. So if we're in a sound booth, if I was a sound designer, I'd be very, very concerned with the details of what it takes to create a good sound, not only just between us here, but also on camera and in the file structure, all of that. It's a big problem to solve and if you were an expert in that domain, you worry about those details. Relative to lighting, I'm very, I'm very studied up on it, right, and I'm an engineer to boot, so for me there's an artistry aspect to it. I love that, but I'm actually sometimes more encouraged because the system itself is a technical thing and how to power it up, how to test for what when things go a little wonky, how do you do the design correctly so that when it installs and installs as design, there's a system level challenge there which is very, very technical.
Speaker 1:The quality of the light, all these kinds of things that people never would think about if you're not a lighting designer, like I wouldn't think about the quality of this mic because I'm not a sound designer, but yes, it can get very complicated very quickly on the back end, but that's what it is to. I love Disney like there's just so many examples. But you take this idea of buzz light year and you make them come to life through all kinds of cues in the environment and then the kids really believe it. And that's what I'm trying to bring to every project that I have. What is it about your house that you love, and how can I repaint it after dark in a way that's just noteworthy, like you find yourself wanting to be on that front porch because you love how people walk by your house and comment on it. This kind of thing is what we do every day. I love that.
Speaker 2:I love your passion for it. I will say like that's what sold me pretty quickly in working with Blingle is that every person on your team believes in what you do and that's amazing. I love working for an organization like that. I love working with businesses like that because it shows in your work. So you know a pause to you. That's great. So, as with many industries, and I would say you know more so since this post pandemic world that we're living in. But you guys have relaunched post pandemic your business in Oklahoma. I love talking about innovation and how things have changed. Can you take me down some either? You know new lighting systems that have come, anything new that you offer that maybe people don't know about. Probably a lot of people don't know just the scope of lights that Blingle offers. I certainly didn't take me down that route.
Speaker 1:If I were to come, I would do a design and I would choose the things that seem to work in the particular ways that that we're talking about, making your house or your business lit up, thank you. So I wouldn't get too worried about trying to figure that stuff out. You probably won't find most of it in Home Depot anyway, if I told you, what's sometimes more interesting is where we're at kind of at this point in development in the history of lighting. It wasn't very long ago that LEDs were absolutely miserably horrible. Stream lights and stuff were much, much better with incandescent little bulbs that we had that they would blow out. You know the strings would never work. That kind of thing was very common just a few years ago. Now, oh my gosh, leds are in headlights because they're so powerful and they're so effective and they're so you know you can do so much with them. So like that, we have adjusted so we don't do any incandescent stuff, for example, or very, very little. I haven't even done one that I can think of while I go to Oklahoma All of it's LED, because the technology matured and also the prices came down. It's ubiquitous now. So not like that. What's next? So I would say that.
Speaker 1:You know, in a lot of the houses that we get to, for example, people are trying to play around with lighting and they do these solar lights in their gardens and stuff like that, but they almost never work. They're not very bright and all of that. But I would say that's what excites me Today. You would not want me to come and put a solar light in your yard because the technology just isn't there. Number one the solar cells aren't that great yet, but getting better by the day. Number two the battery technology isn't that great yet, but it's getting better by the day. You'd think of all the electric cars that are out there now. That was unheard of just a few years ago.
Speaker 1:So, between battery and solar technology, that, I think, is going to transform what I do Right now. It's reliable. It's a lot more complicated to install because there's wires that we have to deal with, but as I move forward, I can absolutely see that you will not need a lot of the hardware that I currently really have to do from a professional point of view to get the results. And that's I mean, just like with LEDs. That is the transition. And then, on top of that, incandescence was it? A month ago there was a national ruling about taking incandescent light bulbs off the market. So it's kind of to the point where you're getting the stuff we grew up with is considered old enough and dirty enough relative to the environment that you can't even buy it anymore. To me it's a little bit mind blowing, but it's a really like present day indication of where we've come and some things are dropping off and where we're about to go relative to the way the technology is going. And then something like drawing technology, for example, we will use that to light something in advance or something outdoors somebody's house, building the water tower we talked about, and then we'll fly drones around in order to capture it from ankles and stuff. So there would be tools like that that would be available, but, like I wouldn't do drone presentations in the sky, for example, that's out of scope for someone like me.
Speaker 1:Remember where your lighting is at your home, at your office. Drive down the freeways in Oklahoma City and notice how dark it still is. And Tulsa, for example, is like I said, we're expanding into Tulsa. Just notice that when you have an experience in a place like Chicago, it just doesn't feel like Oklahoma City, and that actually is, it's not bad. Right, I'm not suggesting that we're somehow behind or anything like that.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to the memorabilia of place and what and like I said earlier, like sunrises and sunsets are part of what we are baked into our enjoyment of our own lives and part of what makes the city feel vibrant, I would say just notice, first off, how dark stuff is and if you could do something about it as just a person on the street, what would make you happy around relighting your home or around transforming a park where there's some art installed, or some of these downtown districts that have a lot of vibrancy but they kind of go dark after dark to the sunsets.
Speaker 1:I think that's what I I don't Blingo can help in all those areas, but I think before we get involved with the lights and the wire and designing and stuff, I think people just need to get.
Speaker 1:This place could be a little funner, a little better, a little less dark, and it's not like a problem, it's just like notice. And if you could transform that, if you could add that, the five layers of design you know the site sound, taste, touch, feel if we could add light, and it would create a deeper experience of life for you, your family, your neighbors. I don't think that's a bad thing. I think you're moving forward in your experience of the of your journey on this planet. So I think it starts with just noticing the dark areas and saying maybe I'm not okay without it anymore. What would I do next? And then there might be a reason for us to talk, because you might or may not have an idea about that, but you know that's okay, you know, so let's play, because sometimes it's just a matter of play and maybe it doesn't go anywhere. But then you have a new set of ideas about you know the life you want to live around your own home or your business.
Speaker 2:So for those people or business owners who finish listening to this episode and they say you know, my life could use a little extra light, how can people connect with Blingle?
Speaker 1:Sure, well, I'm sure you have our information and you can put it on screen somewhere. It's a we're. We're headquartered in Oklahoma City, in Edmond, and we have a little footprint going in in Tulsa, but we we actually will service the whole state. In fact we're servicing Wichita actually as well. So we are one of the most important lighting companies, exterior lighting companies, in the state right now and and I can only see you know it getting better that way because there's such a, there's such a need I was joking with somebody recently. You know, Oklahoma City is something of a lighting desert. It just does lighting good, good, really beautiful lighting just doesn't exist here in enough areas to have it feel like some of the other places in the country.
Speaker 2:And then I'm not going to promise, but maybe at a future BBB event they might run into you. Oh yes, oh no.
Speaker 1:We're friends. We've just begun our relationship, but we'll be long friends.
Speaker 2:And who knows, maybe Big Blue Bash next year we might do another partnership. I think now everybody love the lights so much we might have a hard time not doing it. So, yeah, all good things. Lou, thank you so much for joining me for today's podcast For our listeners. You can stream it on BBB social channels I'm sure that Blingle will also be sharing it and then pretty much anywhere else that you listen to podcasts. But your time is so valuable and I appreciate you coming to talk about lights and your excitement for it and this was really for anybody listening today. It's just like a small glimpse of what I saw working with you guys over. I think it was like a month and a half that we ended up working together getting ready for the event and your passion for what you do and the ethics that went into the work that you did. It was really amazing. So hats off to you. Stay tuned for our next episode. We appreciate you. Make sure to follow and connect with Blingle and BBB at BBB Central. Okay, we will see you next time.