Seeing the Light

Each year, the Boston section of the Illumination Engineering Society (IES) hosts a Student Design Competition for local students to design a light fixture to be judged by a multidisciplinary panel of experts. The winner of this year’s 2021-22 competition was the BAC’s own Molly Malone, who just finished her first class in the Principles of Interior Design Certificate program.

The theme of this year's competition was to create a design based on storms. Taking inspiration from the snow, Molly named her winning design “Wintry Mix.” The fixture would ultimately be made out of hammered aluminum, or material lightweight enough to hang from the ceiling.

“Essentially, my light fixture would be in the shape of a raindrop, with the interior lined with little square mirrors, like what you would find on a disco ball,” Molly said. “The light comes down through the shape and projects back up to the ceiling appearing to be a snowy pattern of illuminated texture.”

The IES competition happened to coincide with the BAC Interiors Lighting course’s midterm project. And, although students weren't required to enter the competition, they did use the IES guidelines as their prompt. Once finished with their midterm project, Molly’s instructor, Eddy Garcia, left it up to the individual student whether or not to enter the competition. Trusting that her creative design was unique, Molly took the extra steps to submit her light fixture.

The Lighting Interiors class is Molly’s first graduate coursework while also working full time. After receiving her bachelor of fine arts in photography from Syracuse University in 2015, in 2016 she began her masters of fine arts in graphic design at Boston University, finishing in 2018.

For the past five years, Molly has worked as a production and development associate at Tracksmith, a running athletic apparel company. However, she decided to leave her job after winning the IES award.

“I quit my job because I want to switch full time into interior design,” Molly said. “After taking the first step of going back to school, and really enjoying it, the IES award definitely helped push me over the edge to believing I can pursue a new career.”

And though Molly is currently contemplating pursuing her certificate in interior design, all three classes that she’ll be taking could be applied to the BAC’s Master of Interior Architecture if she decides to pursue the full degree.

At the end of the semester, Molly had hoped to find an entry level position under an interior designer or in a design firm where she could see the design process for any given project from start to finish. She’ll be doing just that this summer, thanks to her Lighting Interiors instructor, Eddy Garcia.

“I will be joining Eddy's Company, HLB Lighting, beginning mid-July for a three month internship,” Molly said. “I was offered the role after my final project presentation, and I'm very excited to be joining their team and to learn more about the lighting industry as a whole.”

Molly’s main interest lies in residential as opposed to commercial design. This past year, Molly and her partner just bought their own home, allowing her to experiment with design without worrying about what a landlord might say.

“Interior design is taking somebody else's ideas and tastes and putting that into their space,” Molly said, “so being able to try my hand at it in my own space has also pushed me into wanting to change my career path.”

While Molly is excited about embarking on a new career, making the decision to leave her job at Tracksmith was a difficult one: it isn’t easy to walk away from a steady income and its benefits, and especially do it in the middle of a global pandemic.

“The logical side of me has been like, ‘You can just suck it up and keep doing this job you hate,’” Molly said. “But then my soul said, ‘No, you only have one life; you should do what you really want to do and are happy doing. The BAC has helped take me down a new and exciting road–I look forward to seeing what’s around the corner!’”