Carl Gardner is a retired journalist, writer and lighting designer. In the late 1970s, he was a TV columnist on Time Out magazine, before working as a TV researcher on Channel 4’s ‘Voices’ series in the early ‘80s. He then worked for a number of years as a freelance journalist in the area of design, writing for the Independent, the Guardian and various consumer and trade design magazines. Following spells as Editor of Interior Design and Design magazines in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, he studied for an MSc in Light and Lighting at University College London and spent the last 18 years of his working life as an architectural lighting designer and part-time Editor of the bi-monthly, Lighting Journal. He has written and co-written a number of books on retailing and lighting design. He and his wife now live in Sicily for about 4-5 months a year.