Helpful Tips for Preparing a Winning Lumen Entry

Tell a compelling story through the narrative section and document the design process with results through pictures. Keep the story line tight, focused, intelligent.

1. Keep it simple, purposeful – there should be a beginning, middle, and end.
     
2. Your pictures and narrative must tell the judges why it’s worthy of a Lumen.
    
3. Focus on one particularly challenging aspect of the project – instead of attempting to tell every detail, every aspect, in one submittal.
    
4. Use every opportunity, including commenting on energy, to make a compelling story.
    
5. Don’t submit 10 images if you don’t have 10 excellent, important images. A poor image can dilute the strong ones.
    
6. Don’t ramble in your image narrative – don’t write an essay on one image and nothing on others. Address each image. Don’t submit the image if you have nothing to say about it.
    
7. Don’t include daylight shots for outdoor or nighttime projects – don’t include dark interior shots for interiors. Make sure all the bulbs are ON if the image includes functioning luminaires. No dark spots.
    
8. The project summary can introduce the design challenge and address specific goals. Write your image narratives as a script cueing each image in the text as you would like your project read aloud to the judges while viewing each image. Download Summary Example


9. Videos are acceptable, but must not be comprised of still images. No audio or narrative allowed with the videos. The video format is ideal for showing the lit effect, the use of controls, color changes.
    
10. Break up large projects into separate entries. Different portions or aspects of the same project may be submitted separately. Each one must have a unique, distinguishable title and an additional entry fee must be paid. Each entry will be judged separately.