FEATURE ARTICLES

Designer Profile:

Graf Goes the Distance with Illuminart, Fantasee Lighting from www.lighting.com

Stefan Graf comes to the world of lighting design after serving on the long, circuitous front lines of concert lighting in the 1970s for the likes of Grand Funk Railroad, The James Gang, War, and Johnny and Edgar Winter.

When life lighting the trail of rock bands became wearisome in the late ‘70s, Stefan chose to put down stakes on familiar turf in Ypsilanti, Mich., and go after corporate work.

The automakers—with their dazzling special events to unveil the latest models—offered the perfect segue into corporate accounts and architectural lighting.

Today, IlluminArt, the architectural lighting arm of his business that was founded in 1984, has four employees and Fantasee Lighting, the event- and stage-lighting design entity, has 14. As design director of both groups, Stefan devotes about 60% of his time to architectural lighting and 40% to theatrical. His wife, Cindy Hudson, co-owns Fantasee Lighting with him.

“I don’t know of any other company that has a full-service professional design group and a full-service theatrical group with a warehouse full of equipment under one roof,” says Stefan.

“What’s fun is that, when the theatrical group is going to re-light a ballroom, or light a reception at an estate, they go light the landscape, the tent and façade of the home in one evening. Our architectural group can participate in that and try different techniques,” says Stefan.

“In one or two days, we learn a whole lot about what works and what doesn’t, so when we do our designs for landscape or residential façade lighting, we’ve had the experience of doing four or five of them on a temporary basis.”