Willamette Light Brigade is now Nightlab

After months of reflection, collaboration and creative exploration, we’re excited to share a new name and identity for our organization. Willamette Light Brigade is now Nightlab.

This new name reflects who we are today: an organization advancing nighttime placemaking through light-based art.

If you’ve been following our work for a while, you know the name Willamette Light Brigade carries deep history. For more than four decades, it has stood for creativity, civic partnership and a belief in the power of light to transform Portland after dark. From the early years of lighting the Morrison Bridge to the growth of the Portland Winter Light Festival and new initiatives that continue to reimagine public space, that name helped build recognition, trust and community.

But over time, our work grew beyond what the name could fully express.

What began as a bridge-lighting effort expanded into a broader platform for public art, civic connection, artist support and shared experiences that help people see cities differently after dark. We reached a point where our identity needed to better reflect both the full scope of the work and the future we are building.

That is where Nightlab came from.

“Night” speaks to the time and space we are helping reclaim, reimagine and activate.
“Lab” reflects a spirit of experimentation, creativity and invention, the way our work brings together art, infrastructure and community to explore what a city can become after dark.

Why we changed the name

The decision to rebrand was not about leaving our history behind. It was about naming the organization we had become.

For years, the public has known us best through the Portland Winter Light Festival. The Festival has become a beloved winter tradition and one of the clearest expressions of what our work makes possible.

At the same time, the organization’s mission extends well beyond a single program. Nightlab is the umbrella organization behind the Portland Winter Light Festival, the Morrison Bridge Lighting Program, the Illuminate Bridge City initiative, and the Light-Based Public Art Program. Together, these efforts reflect a shared belief that light-based art can help create better cities at night, places that feel more welcoming, connected, vibrant and alive after dark.

What we heard in the rebrand process

This rebrand was shaped in partnership with Portland-based Independent Creative Agency Happylucky through workshops and conversations with team members, board members and key stakeholders. Together, we reflected on the organization’s history, impact and future. Again and again, a few themes came through clearly: 

Light is both our language and our legacy. It has always been our medium, but also a tool for connection, joy, belonging and civic imagination. 

Our work lives between precision and play. Artistry and engineering, scrappy problem-solving and professional rigor have always worked hand in hand. 

The work has shifted from what gets lit to why we light it. What began as infrastructure beautification grew into a way to gather people, transform public space and make optimism visible after dark. 

Collaboration is our quiet power. For more than 40 years, our work has depended on trust among artists, city partners, engineers, unions, funders and communities. Behind every glowing bridge or luminous installation is a web of collaboration that makes it possible.
From those insights, a clear direction emerged: Nighttime placemaking through light-based art.

What Nightlab means now

Nightlab brings together programs that operate at different scales but share the same mission: to connect community and enrich the public realm by harnessing the power of art and artful lighting to transform the cityscape.

• The Portland Winter Light Festival brings hundreds of thousands of people together through light-based art each February.
• The Morrison Bridge Lighting Program gives the public a way to illuminate the Morrison Bridge in recognition of celebrations, causes and events.
• The Light-Based Public Art Program expands access to light-based public art in public spaces and community settings.
• The Illuminate Bridge City initiative is a long-term vision for dynamic lighting across more of Portland’s iconic bridges.

These are not separate ideas. They are different expressions of the same mission.