Once in place, your sign will help to attract customers to your business, raise brand awareness and advertise your company’s location. As the sign is such an important feature of your business’s branding, enhancing it with lighting could help you to get more out of your signage and attract more customers to your premises.

Face illuminated letters with vinyl graphics

Visibility One of the main reasons that businesses opt to light their signs is visibility. There’s no denying that a sign which is brightly lit up through the night is more visible than those without illumination. Even on dark, grey days and winter afternoons, a little bit of lighting can make a big difference and could give your company an edge over the local competition. Once your sign is installed, check the illumination levels to ensure the bulbs are bright enough for optimum visibility. Professionalism Lighting your sign throughout the night can help to lend your business an extra air of professionalism. Passers-by will see that you’re not cutting corners when it comes to making your business visible and that you take brand awareness seriously. If your business is new, it can also help to reassure some customers that you’re not a fly-by-night organisation and are in fact here to stay.

Acrylic illuminated letters with black acrylic facing

Personality If you’ve put a lot of time and effort into creating a sign that perfectly illustrates your company personality, illuminating it can be a great way to get your brand message across and make the most of all that hard work. Lighting your sign can even help to give your business a little more personality as it can bring out various elements of your design and help to draw attention to your text, your font and your colour scheme. Security Last but definitely not least, lighting your sign can be good for security. Not only will the extra illumination around your premises help to deter opportunistic thieves, leaving the sign lit all night can make it harder for would-be burglars to work out if there’s anyone onsite and therefore make it less likely they’ll attempt a break in.

There is a wealth of illumination available for signage, some of the most popular and effective options include:

Halo illuminated lettering and logo with warm and cold LEDs

Halo Illuminated Letters typically have a metal face with an opal polycarbonate back tray. LEDs are mounted to the rear of the face and shine through the opal backing to create a ‘halo’ of light around each individual letter. Face Illuminated Letters, as the name suggests, have the face of the letter illuminated. They typically will have acrylic faces with LED modules fitted to a back tray. Acrylic Illuminated Letters are very versatile for lit signs. Suitable for bold fonts and logos, these signs can be lit from all sides, or face only. Lightbox Signs can be used indoors and outdoors and are one of the simplest forms of illuminated signage. Lightboxes have an acrylic face with LEDs installed to the back plate of the box. Printed vinyl graphics are then applied to the acrylic face to bring the design to life with illumination.

Illuminated stencil cut sign tray with acrylic lettering

Stencil Cut Signs are cost-effective illuminated panels suitable for external or internal use. Aluminium panels are cut to house acrylic inlays, coloured acrylic or vinyl can be used to create corporate colours. LEDs are added to the back tray to shine through the acrylic creating a cut-out lit letter effect. Neon Signs are lit by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. Neon signs rose to popularity between the 1920’s and 60’s in the US with Vegas being famous for its neon signage. Trough Lighting is used when the sign or letters themselves do not have lit elements, but illumination is required. This type of lighting can be retro-fitted to existing signage. Trough lights can be used on building signs, monolith signs and hanging signs, to name a few. There are several other illuminated signage options available! If you’re currently in the process of designing a sign for your commercial premises and are looking for information about the various options available, take a look around our site or get in touch today. Keep an eye our for our future blogs on choosing the right illuminated sign for your business!