Customize Your Way to Signage Success

Your client just said “I’d like for the daytime appearance of this channel letter sign’s letters to be white, but at night they need to be red.” What is your response? This is easily done. It is possible for your client’s sign to have a distinctly different day/night appearance. And the key to that difference is perforated vinyl. Each channel letter project involving vinyl is actually a “triple handshake” – the letter set’s day/night face color appearance is a function of:

• Illumination color
• Acrylic (letter face) color
• Vinyl color and type

It is this combination that determines the day/night face appearance. Obviously, the letter face’s appearance during the day will be the vinyl color, but the night face appearance can be substantially different. BLACK DAY APPEARANCE/WHITE APPEARANCE AT NIGHT Here is an example. Your client wants the letter faces to be black during the day, but white when illuminated at night. Using this sign component combination:

• White LED
• White acrylic
• Dual-color black perforated vinyl

The channel letters will then have this day/night appearance:  Or, suppose your client would like their letter faces to be white during the day, and red at night. You would need to specify this letter component set:

• Red LED
• Red acrylic
• White perforated vinyl

That would give you this day/night letter appearance:  STANDARD CUT VINYL (NON-PERFORATED) Standard cut vinyl (or “Graphic Film”, as 3M calls it) also gives you multiple ways to customize your client’s channel letter sign. The vinyl color selection is larger than it is for acrylic. Also, if you have a client that “wants to get as close as possible to this PMS color”, vinyl can help you to meet that client’s color preference. Check our vinyl color chart for details. Also, check the acrylic/vinyl configurations below.

REVEAL AND BORDER CHANNEL LETTER CONFIGURATIONSVinyl does not necessarily need to cover the entire letter face. You can further customize your client’s letter set appearance by using a Reveal configuration – that looks like this:  

Another possibility is a Border configuration, where the vinyl is applied only to the letter face edge:

 So remember your channel letter face colors are not restricted to the standard acrylics palette. A substantial list of vinyl colors are available to change the letter set appearance both during the day and at night. That flexibility can help you please a picky client and make the sign sale.