ImageFirst News

Graphic designers certainly are worth their weight in gold, but they can also inadvertently limit the effectiveness of your client’s channel letter set.

As a sig­nage con­sul­tant & retail­er, it pays to watch out for some of the poten­tial trou­ble spots in your client’s design. Col­or choice is a good exam­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to illu­mi­nat­ed sign areas and fre­quent­ly a designer’s cre­ativ­i­ty can lead to a dimin­ished per­for­mance for your client’s sign.

Dark Face Colors

For exam­ple, sup­pose your client’s chan­nel let­ter sign con­fig­u­ra­tion calls for full-cov­er dark blue vinyl on the faces. What should you tell your client about the poten­tial night vis­i­bil­i­ty per­for­mance of that color?

Cer­tain col­ors have bet­ter night vis­i­bil­i­ty than oth­ers — even with prop­er­ly installed let­ter illu­mi­na­tion. Which translu­cent vinyl col­ors may not have vibrant night vis­i­bil­i­ty? Dark Blue, bur­gundy, black, pur­ple, gray, and dark greens allow less than 1% actu­al light transmission.

If your client receives a chan­nel let­ter set with a full vinyl face cov­er from the list above, they may mis­tak­en­ly think insuf­fi­cient illu­mi­na­tion (LED mod­ules) was installed. But addi­tion­al LED mod­ules would not solve the prob­lem. The prob­lem lies with the vinyl face col­or and the amount of light absorbed by that col­or — not with the LED.

Reveal Vinyl Configuration

Your client may insist on keep­ing the dark­er vinyl col­or (pos­si­bly because of a brand­ing col­or requirement).

A reveal con­fig­u­ra­tion places a vinyl lay­er slight­ly small­er than the let­ter faces onto the acrylic leav­ing a small light chan­nel at the edge (1÷8” to ¼”). This lay­out (dark­er vinyl over white acrylic) gen­er­ates a high­ly vis­i­ble let­ter set while retain­ing the dark­er face col­or your client requested.

Per­fo­rat­ed Vinyl

Per­fo­rat­ed vinyl is anoth­er poten­tial night vis­i­bil­i­ty solu­tion when your client insists on retain­ing a dark face col­or. This prod­uct can pro­vide a dark let­ter face appear­ance by day and a lighter col­or at night.

The unique sur­face per­mits a suf­fi­cient amount of emit­ted light to effec­tive­ly change the illu­mi­nat­ed letter’s face col­or. This field of light cre­at­ed in front of the let­ter faces projects the illu­sion of a dif­fer­ing col­or at night — and may solve the poten­tial night vis­i­bil­i­ty prob­lem from dark­er vinyl colors.

Per­fo­rat­ed vinyl col­ors can also be con­fig­ured to match almost any col­or scheme your client requests. The dig­i­tal print option offers almost any col­or shade your client may spec­i­fy — includ­ing the dark­er col­ors men­tioned above. Although the most com­mon per­fo­rat­ed vinyl con­fig­u­ra­tion is black per­fo­rat­ed over white face acrylic, addi­tion­al col­or com­bi­na­tions are exten­sive. For exam­ple, if the client would like a white let­ter day­time appear­ance and red at night, then white per­fo­rat­ed vinyl could be placed over red acrylic. 

Face Illu­mi­na­tion Options

So if your client presents you with a chan­nel let­ter design that includes a full-cov­er dark vinyl col­or on the let­ter faces, let them know in advance that can impact the lev­el of night visibility.

Ask them to con­sid­er using a par­tial cov­er­ing of the face (reveal con­fig­u­ra­tion), per­fo­rat­ed vinyl, or sim­ply a lighter vinyl col­or. Your client’s ulti­mate sat­is­fac­tion is at stake and they will appre­ci­ate the consultancy!