Channel Letters: Effective

vs Ineffective Design  

Part 1- Potential Problems with Channel Letters- Contrast

Example 1

3-D IMAGES

Customers will often come to us for help with channel letters. “Channel letters” is the term for three-dimensional fabricated letters and logos that light up internally.

MANY SHAPES AND SIZES

Sometimes they are mounted directly to the wall surface, and sometimes they are mounted on a raceway that is mounted to the wall. The “faces” of the letters are the flat parts of the fronts that usually light up at night, and the “returns” are the edges of the letters that go back to the raceway or wall. Channel letters are mostly used for retail store identification at strip centers, malls and stand-alone stores.

MULTI-INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS

They are excellent ways to brand a building, whether a jewelry store, a bank, a hotel, a restaurant or a grocery store. They are also used by hospitals to identify emergency rooms, and colleges use them to identify the buildings on campus. When designed right, the three dimensional quality of channel letters makes them eye-catching and appealing to passing pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Channel letters aren’t limited to storefront walls. They can also be utilized to add depth to otherwise monolithic monument and pylon signs.

THREE POTENTIAL PROBLEMS WITH CHANNEL LETTERS

Three elements of sign design that can make a set of letters ineffective are: (1) poor contrast between letter and wall color during day or night; (2) areas in open centers of letters that attract nesting birds; and (3) insufficient viewing angle. Many times a client will tell us, “I don’t like my current sign, but I can’t tell you why.” The skilled sign designer can immediately see the problem. Such is the case when channel letters are not designed with cast shadows in mind.

Like with any sign, establishing the best contrast between the sign graphics and the background is the key to readability. During the morning hours on clear days, just as customers are beginning to make their way to various retailers, the sun is casting long and dark shadows on the channel letters of the world. Depending on their design, this can either create negative or positive readability. If the letter faces are white, the shadows usually help the letters pop out from a light or dark colored wall. If, however, the background walls are light color and the letters are dark without an outline, the effect of the shadows can make it nearly impossible to read because the letters and the shadows will all blend together (see example 1). The shadow challenge can be overcome by incorporating light color faces with outlines and dark returns (see example 2).

Example 2

Another design strategy of a good channel letter design is to keep the widths of letter strokes wider than the shadow it will cast so it will help with legibility in bright light and shadows. From an engineering view, wide strokes are usually necessary to economically build channel letters and install lighting evenly within them. Also, the width of the lettering affects the viewing angle at which the lettering can be read. The wider the stroke of a letter, the wider the horizontal viewing angle. Viewing angle is important for the visibility of your sign by potential customers passing at close proximity of your storefront.

OUR SERVICE AREA

NEED A SERVICE CALL FOR EXISTING CHANNEL LETTERS? (CLICK HERE)

NEED HELP WITH NEW CHANNEL LETTERS FOR YOUR STORE OR MULTI-SITE BUSINESS?  (CLICK HERE TO CONTACT A PROJECT MANAGER)

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The project consisted of an all-aluminum system with custom brushed finishes. The ceiling mounted signs in the terminal required special equipment for installation due to the height above the floor level. Each sign type comprising the new system was prototyped and reviewed prior to construction in Richmond. Several recommendations for design improvements were suggested by Holiday Signs and worked into the final project. Signs were designed in strict accordance with ADA and FAA guidelines. Full-size scaled templates of every sign were prepared prior to final production for approval of typefaces, letter heights, spacing, and wording by the wayfinding consultant and architect.

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Designing signs for high-rise applications and attaching them to buildings is not a typical capability of the average sign company. Technically speaking, there are few sign companies in Virginia that can truly handle the full gamut of signage from vinyl hours on the glass entrance doors to the huge custom electric signs that brand the tops of towers across familiar city skylines of Northern Virginia, Richmond, Tidewater and Roanoke.

Holiday Signs provided the branding signage for the MeadWestvaco (MWV) Corporate Headquarters building located at 501 South Fifth Street, Richmond, Virginia. The building’s striking design above the James River is signed with the corporate brand making the MWV building a noticeable and visually attractive addition to downtown Richmond. The project involved the design, manufacture and installation of MWV logos for three sides of the skyscraper viewed 24 hours a day.

Holiday Signs delivered considerable value to the customer by producing logo prototypes made during the course of this project. Using prototypes may seem like an unnecessary use of materials at first glance, but when considering large scale signage and costs of manufacture and installation of high-rise work, using prototypes only makes good sense.

HOW CAN LIGHTING TURN TRAFFIC INTO CUSTOMERS?

A Look at Sign Illumination Choices

Red, Hot & Blue uses open neon tubing to attract hungry passers-by.

“Signage communicates through both conscious and non-conscious processes. Indeed signage may not only convey information and impressions – it may even persuade through non-conscious processing of design attributes,” says a recent University of Cincinnati study by Dr. James J. Kellaris and James S. Womack. This means the color, shape, size, and overall “personality” of your signs become major influences on people’s perception and recognition of your brand.

It is important to remember your signage is a 24-hour marketing tool that acts as your company’s personal sales representative as it makes first and hopefully lasting impressions on those who interact with it visually. Considering their high-profile street locations across Virginia and North Carolina, many of our clients realize this fact and have made investments in enhanced sign lighting effects netting positive results.

According to the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, the first known illuminated sign dates back to 1840 when P.T. Barnum’s Museum was advertised by a gas-lit display. Gas lighting continued to be used by theaters, drug stores and other retailers until the electric lamp was introduced in 1881. The first electric signs used incandescent bulbs to make graphics similar to the way electronic LED signs do today. In 1910, the Great Chariot Race Sign in New York City was one of the most famous electrical displays in the world featuring a Roman chariot race simulating the movement of horses, drivers and whips at 2,500 flashes per minute and attracting crowds every night for years.

The bright Open-Face Neon letters in Bruce’s Body Shop are perfect for service shops

Neon lighting was developed in 1902 by a French scientist named Georges Claude. It was a popular choice for illuminated signs in the twentieth century and still is today. Although LED lighting has replaced many previous neon applications in signs due to costs of power and maintenance, there are still applications where neon is the best choice, making aesthetic statements that LED cannot achieve. Many restaurants choose open-faced neon channel letters and logos for their on-premise signage because neon lighting is bright, rich in color and creates a clean, crisp and inviting image. Neon or LED striping can also be implemented as borders on buildings and around traditional box signs for attention-grabbing effects.

Today there are many choices for electric sign lighting and special effects. To portray a sense of quality, distinction and high value, some clients choose backlighting for their signs. This is where channel letter faces are constructed of a solid material and the lighting installed within the lettering bounces off the wall producing a halo effect. Fink’s Jewelers, a regionally-focused, multi-location retailer based in Roanoke, Virginia, chose LED backlighting for wall mounted channel letters in the example below.

Fluorescent lighting comes in both warm and cold tones and is traditionally used in sign cabinets with translucent faces. For special effects, the backgrounds can be opaque where only the lettering lights up at night. Similarly, the lettering can be raised from the background to create edge-lit push-thru graphics.

Back-lit Channel letters in Fink’s Jewelers produce a sense of quality, distinction, and high value

There are many ways to stand out among the crowd. One way is to influence buyers through special lighting effects. Holiday Signs has an experienced staff of designers, fabricators and installers who can produce effective custom lighting for your particular marketing application. For over 30 years our project managers have been involved with helping clients create just the right image to turn traffic into customers who understand your products and services before they walk through the door based on successful sign communications!

Contact: Mark Hackley, Account Executive mhackley@holidaysigns.com (540)416-3154