Kristy Kropat

San Diego, California.

Kristy Kropat is an interior designer, lighting designer, engineer, design educator and entrepreneur. She founded her boutique design studio 18 years ago in San Diego, delivering award-winning residential and commercial projects throughout California and Germany.

Her work has been featured in over 28 national and international publications including Better Homes and Gardens, the Wall Street Journal, Atomic Ranch, Cooking Light and she also served as the off-camera designer for A&E’s reality design show “Fix This Kitchen”.

Having lived and worked in San Francisco and Berlin, Kristy brings an international perspective to her practice. After spending 11 years away, she has returned to her native San Diego, where she serves as President-Elect of the San Diego Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers and was a judge for San Diego Magazine’s Home + Design Awards 2026.

With a background that blends creative and technical expertise, she combines analytical problem-solving and design thinking to create beautiful, functional, sustainable and inclusive spaces. Kristy believes that design shapes how we live, and that lighting, when composed with intention, enhances function while also transforming a space’s atmosphere, and experience.

Kristy’s first career in computer and electrical engineering, combined with her second career in interior design, naturally led to a deep passion for lighting design. This passion inspired her to spend two and a half years studying architectural lighting design, earning a Master’s degree in Lighting Design and Design Management from Wismar University of Applied Sciences.

Her graduate thesis, “Beyond the Bulb: Seeing Home in a New Light Advancing the Quality of Artificial Light in California’s Residential Construction” explored how the quality of lighting in residential environments impacts human well-being, highlighting opportunities to improve standard builder-grade lighting solutions and create homes illuminated with greater intention, enhancing both functionality and the overall living experience.

Quality lighting relies on a layered approach of ambient, task and accent lighitng and a thoughtful balance of many interconnected elements: Visual Comfort (no glare), Task Performance, Mood, Atmosphere, Well-Being, Health, Safety, Aging-in-Place and Aesthetic Accents. Design Impacts Lives. Light Impacts design.

Kristy Kropat Design collaborates with interior designers, architects, landscape architects and clients to ensure every beam of light enhances beauty, comfort and purpose.

Get in touch to start your design project.