How to Put LED Lights on a Desk

The most common option for LED lights is to just stick them down. Many LEDs will come with a sticky back which means they can easily be plopped onto walls, desk sides, and other areas with ease (but you have other lighting options too).

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When it comes to building a gaming setup, one of the biggest issues I have always found is with lighting.

Lights are so important, especially for those late evening/early morning sessions when you need a bit of illumination.

Sure, your monitor should be giving off some lighting, but you need a bit more than this.

One of the best ways to light up your desk, I have found, is to simply use some LED lights.

LED lighting is a great choice for adding a bit of extra personality to your desk.

I have always found it hard to locate the best places to put the lights down on, though.

A friend and I were discussing this last week; where should you go about putting LED lights on a desk? After an hour, we were no closer to a solution!

However, I have reconfigured my own setup this week and came up with a few ideas that I think might be useful for you down the line.

Out of all the various ways how to put LED lights on a desk, I have found the following tips can be useful for optimal appeal.

How to Put LED Lights on Your Desk Guide:

So, one thing I want to talk about is actually installing the lights. Most of the time, you have a few options.

The most common options for LED lights is to stick them down. Many LEDs will come with a sticky back that means they can easily be plopped onto walls, desk sides, and other areas with ease.

Of course, these lights can also begin to lose their strength over time in terms of stickiness.

This means that your LEDs on the side of your desk, for example, might fall off. At the same time, you might find that your LEDs are not designed with a sticky back design.

In most cases, this means you need to have them stuck down using some form of placement.

They might, for example, come with a few screws that you can then install the light onto your desk with. This comes with a few issues, mainly safety.

Do you then have a big screw sticking out a part of your desk where you could get your leg caught?

Most of the time, LED lights that are fitted permanently using screws or the like tend to be larger in size.

They also tend to be stuck onto the side of the desk. Just about any LED that you can fit on the top of your desk should be able to simply be put in place, or held down with an adhesive backing.

For the most part, I recommend avoiding LED lighting for desks that has to be stuck down permanently.

They tend to create collateral damage in terms of actually screwing through your desk, and the stuck down alternatives can be so much more effective.

You can of course get some gaming desks with LED lights already in the table itself – which are definitely worth checking out as well.

Tips on Where to Place Your LED Lights on Your Desk

Wondering where to fit your LED lights? Here are some suggestions based on my own experience, and setups I have seen friends using.

Underneath the main area for peripherals

A friend of mine decided that he felt his monitors gave off enough illumination.

As such, he decided to go for something else instead: LED lighting that sits underneath the main area for the monitor, keyboard, and mouse – this worked well as it helped to illuminate everything underneath.

This meant that things on the floor could easily be spotted, and it also created that kind of mysterious look.

I tried it out myself with a simple LED strip stuck to the wall my desk was attached to. The end result, I have to say, was pretty striking and stylish.

I am not sure if it was something I would go for myself all the time, but having a little LED strip under the desk – preferably with chromatic colour options – can work very well indeed. If nothing else, it’s a bit of extra ambience at night.

Behind your monitor

Another place I quite like the setup of a LED light strip is behind the monitor itself. This means that you technically cannot see the LED light itself, but you can see the illumination it creates.

This can create a kind of cool, neon look that instantly makes your monitor and all of the peripherals that you use light up.

It looks really good in the evening, too, creating a kind of evocative contrast that should immediately appeal.

Sitting them behind your monitor is the minimalistic choice, too. It creates the direct lighting and the ambience without the same striking detail.

For me, this was one of the best places to put my LED lights when my desk was quite small.

For a more minimalist, approach, this is definitely the place that I would recommend you think about sticking those LED lights for maximum impact alongside minimal space being used.

Underneath shelving units

One of the best places I like to put my lighting for my gaming desk is on the bottom of shelving units.

The way my previous setup was designed, I essentially had a desk with a couple of tall shelving areas that ran up the sides.

At the top was also another shelf, creating a little box area for my monitor to sit nice and snug.

This looked great, but it was enhanced further by the installation of LED lights on each of the shelves.

This looked really impressiv and helped to create the illumination effect I wanted.

By having them on the bottom of the shelf, it helped to then light up the shelf underneath and thus created a few little pockets of different colors and lights.

In my opinion, this looked great. Even if your shelving units are not part of the desk itself, placing them underneath works a treat.

Above the desk itself

One option I also quite liked was the idea of having the LED lights sitting directly above me.

So, I basically would stick them on the ceiling above where I sit. This creates a kind of spotlight effect around the entire desk, illuminating everything even well into the evening.

It looked really cool and crucially it made sure that even if I was sitting in conventional darkness that I could still see everything I was doing.

This was useful for me personally as it made sure I was always in full control overall of what I was doing.

It might not be practical for every setup, but LED lights placed above your desk can create quite an intriguing visual dynamic.

Why Should You Use LED Lights?

The first question you might have, though, is quite simple: why LEDs? Why not just got with a normal lamp or ceiling light?

The simplest answer is style.

LED lights allow for you to create a nice and simplistic looking design that shines bright, looks cool, and more or less instantly matches up with your own personality.

At the same time, they allow for easy and radical placement so that you can have light reflecting off different obstacles and areas.

For example, if you have mirrors in your room, you could position the LEDs so they hit off the mirror and thus create a kind of strobe effect.

Another reason for LEDs is the heating aspect. If you choose to go for a standard lamp, then it can add a bit of needless light to the gaming desk.

This means that especially during the summer nights you can feel yourself getting all hot and uncomfortable.

I hate this, and if you are anything like me you probably want to avoid excess and needless heat when gaming.

Nothing throws off my aim or my strategizing quite like sitting there in the boiling heat and humidity!

LED lights are also more cost-effective. In these days of highly expensive living, keeping the old energy bills down should be a priority.

LEDs are cooler to run, they are cheaper to run, and they can provide the best longevity.

No need to go about replacing bulbs and whatnot, as just about any LED light for your desk should be designed to give off thousands of hours of lighting before it gives out.

There are a few good reasons to think about going down the route of using LED lights. Cost and heat, though, are definitely the two main benefits.