Kelly Aaron is ready to light up a room…any room! As the ‘Chief Luminary’ at Blueprint Lighting, the boutique lighting company she recently founded with husband Josh Aaron, with whom she also runs the vintage decor outfit Refine Limited, Kelly mans the design decks with help from son, Zoe (mother and son are pictured above). Despite being less than a year old, the company is fully loaded with a roster of mid-century-Italian-industrialism-meets-Hollywood Regency lamps, chandeliers, and pendants, and continually churning out new, striking designs. Specializing in crafting custom versions of their sleek fixtures to fit any request (and with a turnaround time of just three weeks!) this NYC-based brand has managed to quickly upend the custom lighting industry.
We recently chatted with Kelly and she shed some light on the art of capturing inspiration, creative workarounds, and the importance of finding your niche. Plus, discover how Blueprint Lighting is bringing custom to the people! Warning: the lighting puns are only just switching on.
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How did you get started in design?
“I opened a Mid Century shop in Asheville, North Carolina in late 1999, and sent my better pieces to auction at places like Phillips and Wright. I started getting into museums and sat on the board of directors for a few museums in North Carolina, guest curating exhibitions and writing the exhibition catalogues. Then I dove really hard into mid-century studio pottery, modernist jewelry, and metalwork. I went completely in that craft direction in a scholarly way. Fast forward to now and I own a showroom in Chelsea which is equal parts vintage (I’ve never stopped doing vintage and that’s our company Refine Limited) and current production pieces for Blueprint Lighting. So I guess I’ve sort of been in design my whole adult life.”
Tell us how you came to focus on bespoke lighting and what sparked (pun intended) the founding of Blueprint Lighting?
“There was a very specific sort of ‘ah-ha’ moment for that. We got a call three years ago from a designer at Jonathan Adler who was working on an apartment for Gordon Thompson, who at the time was the design director for Cole Haan and Nike. We had this 3-tier vintage Italian chandelier, it was a very Stilnovo-style Italian thing, and they wanted to use it for a 20-foot ceiling in his apartment, but we had it on hold for another client. Everyone wanted this thing but I only had one and it was just a big fail. So, my husband and I decided that we would just figure how to come up with another chandelier — we didn’t want to lose either sale. We’re both kind of wired that way, no pun intended. We said, let’s just figure out how to make another chandelier. So we did! We produced one for Gordon and sold the vintage chandelier to the other client. And then we kept figuring it out for other clients. Anytime we’d get multiple interests in a vintage chandelier, we’d go, let’s see if we can make it. We kept doing that and then finally we committed to evolving this into its own brand. Blueprint was born very organically just out of need. And that chandelier is still something that we sell. It’s our 3-Tier Monolith chandelier that we have on Chairish and it’s still a very big seller for us.”
Where do you source inspiration for your sleek, eye-catching aesthetic?
“For us, it’s mostly our travels. We love going to Europe and we love to spend weekends with our little kids in all kinds of sleepy New England towns. And I love to just lose myself in little spots in the city and find new neighborhoods I’ve never been in before. I’m also constantly taking pictures of shapes. Just any sort of shape I think we might be able to translate into a lighting design. I took 40 pictures one afternoon with my kids in the Museum of Natural History of some random crustaceans that I thought could evolve into something interesting and that’s usually how it is. Just walking around, nothing more than that.”
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I love the title “Chief Luminary” from your Instagram bio — Blueprint Lighting is a female-owned business (and we are particularly fond of girl-bosses here at Chairish) and a family business. Tell us about owning your own business and also working with your son, Zoe.
“I’ve never not owned a business. I was in my early 20’s when I started my first business so I’ve just sort of always worked for myself. It’s not without its challenges and some days I wish I had a job that I went to and got a paycheck for, but the flexibility of owning your own business has always been really appealing to me. It allows me to travel and call it a business expense, and actually do work while I’m there. It’s definitely got its challenges but I wouldn’t change it — I don’t know how to operate any other way.
I have three children. My oldest, Zoe, is 20, and I also have a 5 and a 6-year old. My son, poor thing, has been lugged around to museum shows and exhibitions and board meetings since he was three years old. He’s just sort of always had design in his life. He’s great and proves himself more valuable everyday because he brings fresh eyes and sees things a little differently.”
What is the collaboration process like between your team and a client requesting a custom design?
“We get two very different categories of clients: the designers and architects who we work with and the end users; people who come to us directly to purchase something for their home. Designers come to us and they’ve got this whole folder of renderings, color palettes, and inspiration pictures. We’re usually just sitting down with them and confirming that we can achieve their vision, stay in their budget, and verifying details and getting it all in writing.
With the end user, they’re flying without a designer and I end up being their designer a lot of the time. We talk about the room, the drop height, the finishes — everything from start to finish. I really have to hand hold and educate as I go, which is fine. I’m a mom so I’m used to educating as I go. Ultimately they end up with a completely custom piece, and sometimes they don’t realize that they can do that. They think they have to walk into a lighting shop and buy the light as it sits. It’s definitely worth my time and effort because the level of satisfaction that customer gets is huge.”
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Blueprint’s signature is a crazy quick turnaround on custom lighting pieces — three weeks (!!!) — can you share why that felt important?
“That is our big signature. When we were launching, I had been thinking about this for months. I was worried there wasn’t room in the marketplace for another modern lighting company and I was trying to think what can our niche be. I found there was a real need to have those customization options but with realistic lead times, which was really hard to find. We were actually out yesterday at an install with Amy Seminski, who is a well-known designer here in New York. We were delivering a custom piece for her and her client was home and she looks at me and says, “If I heard ’20 week lead time’ one more time I thought was going to lose my mind!” I get it! We did this much quicker than most companies could so it’s very validating to know that’s a need we are filling.
What is your favorite piece currently for sale in your Chairish shop?
“We love everything, of course, but our favorite is actually the simplest piece we make: the Model 120 “Nest” chandelier. We sell a lot of these on Chairish. It’s based on a 1950’s Italian design and I like it because it looks great anywhere. It’s not trendy, it sort of transcends trends. It’s modern but it’s timeless at the same time, and it’s also very affordable. We’ve actually got one in our house.”
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5 Tips For Finding the Right Light
1. Know your budget! Set a budget for yourself and always know what you’re getting into money-wise. Even on the same chandelier with different finishes there can be a huge price shift. If we have a budget in mind I can come in and help steer someone away from, say, finishes that are going to make the price go too high.
2. Don’t be afraid of wacky or super saturated colors. Lighting is a perfect way to bring in pops of color. You may not want to do a chartreuse room but some chartreuse in your chandelier or on a wall sconce is a really great, sophisticated way to play with color.
3. Think outside the box. We always do bedside lamps on our nightstands. Think about wall mount sconces instead. They lend an architectural element and are a more thoughtful design pieces with a more high end look. Just think creatively with lighting.
4. Play with scale. Don’t be afraid to put a giant chandelier in a powder room. Or a giant chandelier in your bedroom where you would normally put, say, a flush mount. Maybe do something wild and put a sculpture on your ceiling. Don’t be afraid of scale!
5. Buy what you like — you don’t have to pay attention to trends. Trends are great and give us some guidance, but if you buy what you like you’ll always do well. When I first started in this business back in the late 90’s, I had a friend and mentor who was an antiques dealer. He’d been in the business for 30-years and he once told me, “If you buy what you like, you’ll never mess up,” so I still live by that rule. Trends or no trends, just buy what you like!