We recently made a new channel letter sign for a creative studio that was interested in advertising their business at nighttime as well as in the daytime. We made them a set of channel letters and a channel letter box. They wanted the sign to have 3-dimensional letters that light up at nighttime which is why we decided to go with a channel letter sign. Channel letters are hollow metal letters with a lighting source inside of them so they are internally illuminated. Our channel letters use LEDs because they are more energy efficient compared to neon or fluorescent.
They wanted the faces of the letters to light up so we made front-lit channel letters. Front-lit channel letters have solid returns and backs but the face is translucent so when the LEDs are on at nighttime, the faces illuminate. Different acrylic, vinyl, and LEDs colors can be used to achieve different colors or patterns. The faces of these channel letters are attached with trimcap so they can be replaced or removed in case of damage or if the color of the acrylic or vinyl has faded due to sun exposure. The face can also be removed and put back easily in case the LEDs need to be serviced.
For this sign, we used translucent white acrylic as the base of the faces and laid black day and night vinyl on the faces because the client wanted the letters to be black in the daytime and white at nighttime. Day and night vinyl is perforated so, in the daytime, you see whatever color the vinyl is. But at nighttime when there is no outside light and the LEDs are on, the translucent white acrylic is illuminated with white LEDs so the faces illuminate white.
Sometimes, we will use a channel letter box for additional lettering when the lettering is too small to make into channel letters but the information still needs to be visible at nighttime. For this channel letter box, we made a curved rectangle shape that is essentially made like a channel letter. The face is one piece of acrylic, and the black areas are black vinyl that we plotted the letters out of so the white lettering you see is the white acrylic.
