The present invention provides a method of reducing hot spots in a light guide plate. The method comprises distributing a set of lenses in the core zone and a set of micro-lenses in the mixing zone between Y=Y0 and Y=Y1, wherein the density of the set of micro-lenses varies in the X-axis, having a maximum value at a first location that has a same X value as the center of one of the discrete light sources, and having a minimum value at a second location that has a same X value as the center of two adjacent discrete light sources, and a size and density of the micro-lenses is selected to redirect the light from the discrete light sources toward the Y-axis and provide a ratio L1/L0 that is between 0.9 and 1.1 for any Y≧Y1.