Desk lamp or table lamp? Lighting a work-from-home corner in Kenya

The one difference that matters

A desk lamp points light down onto a task. A table lamp throws lightout into the room through a shade. That is the whole distinction. Everything else, the arm, the clamp, the swivel, is a detail of how the light gets aimed.

So the question is not which one is better. It is what you are actually doing at that desk.

Choose a desk lamp if…

• You work on paper. Sketching, marking scripts, reading printouts or invoices. Paper needs bright, directed light on the page, and nothing else does that as well as an adjustable arm.
• Your desk faces a wall with no window. Directed light stops the wall from feeling like a cave and gives your eyes a bright point to rest on.
• You share the room at night. A tight pool of light on the desk lets someone else sleep two metres away.

Choose a table lamp if…

• You work on a screen. A laptop lights itself. What tires your eyes is the contrast between a bright screen and a dark room. A shaded lamp beside the monitor lifts the whole area to a similar brightness, and the squinting stops.
• The desk is also the dining table, or the bedside. A table lamp works for dinner and for the last chapter of a book. A desk lamp looks like an office at 9pm.
• You take video calls. A shaded lamp just off to one side of the camera is the kindest light a face can get. An overhead bulb gives you raccoon eyes, and a desk lamp aimed at the keyboard lights your chin from below.

The Nairobi reality: most people need the table lamp

Most work-from-home setups here are a laptop on a shared surface in a room that has to become a living room or bedroom again by evening. That is a table lamp brief. The light it gives is softer, it flatters the room when the laptop closes, and a dimmer takes it from "spreadsheet" to "Netflix" with one turn.

If you genuinely do paper work every day, buy the desk lamp. If you are not sure, you are not a paper person.

Setting it up so it actually helps

• Put the lamp on the opposite side to your writing hand so your hand does not shadow the page or the keyboard.
• Keep the bottom of the shade around eye level when seated. Lower and the bulb glares; higher and the light lands on the ceiling instead of the desk.
• Use warm light in the evening. 2700K, the colour of a candle, is what our bulbs ship with. It is easy on the eyes after dark and does not fight your sleep the way a cool white bulb does. Readwarm light vs cool lightif you want the reasons.
• Dim it as the evening goes on. Full brightness at 3pm, half at 7pm, a glow at 10pm. Your eyes adjust and you will notice the difference the first week.

Three lamps that earn a place on a desk

Everything we make ships with a warm dimmable LED, so all of these go from working light to evening light on the same switch. Prices are on each page.

• Silo

  The small footprint is the point. A sculpted base and a soft, level glow that sits beside a laptop without taking half the desk.

• Kola

  A slim column with a spiral groove. Tall enough to lift the light above a monitor, narrow enough to share a table with dinner.

• Ngoma

  A tall textured cylinder that fills edge to edge with no glare. The best of the three for video calls, because the whole surface becomes the light source.

Browse the full range oftable lamps in Kenya, or seewhat a good lamp costs before you decide.