Backlit Office Signs

Backlit Office Signs

Lighted Sign Options

What are Backlit Office Signs?

Backlit office signs have LED light strips mounted to the back of each letter allowing a light to glow around each letter providing a "halo" effect. Backlit signs are typically made using flat cut materials like acrylic and are raised off the wall on special clear and metal mounts. The acrylic is sometimes finished with a metal face with painted silver edges to match.

Backlit metal logo sign for EconoLease Office in Toronto Made by ArtSigns

Thanks again you did an amaz­ing job, it looks awe­some! — Ariel Kotler | EconoLease Finan­cial Services

Benefits of Backlighting your Sign

  • Helps draw atten­tion to your sign
  • Increas­es visibility
  • Increas­es impact
  • Makes view­ing the sign more memorable

Backlighting requirements

While back­light­ing is a great way to help your sign stand out from the wall, espe­cial­ly in poor­ly lit areas, only cer­tain signs with large enough let­ters or bold font may apply for illu­mi­na­tion. Illu­mi­nat­ed let­ters or sym­bols must allow enough space on the back to hide 12″ wide LED strips with­out run­ning into difficulty.

Backlit Lobby Sign made by ArtSigns with metal with red LED lights

Backlit vs other lighted options

We most com­mon­ly use back­light­ing with flat cut dimen­sion­al mate­ri­als. A few oth­er light­ed sign options include:

  • Back­lit Met­al Chan­nel letters
  • Face-lit Met­al Chan­nel letters
  • Acrylic Chan­nel Letters
  • Frost­ed Illu­mi­nat­ed Let­ters with back­ing pan­el or box

Examples of Various Lighted Signs

Fabricated Aluminum Sign Panel with Lighted Logo
Raised backlit dimensional letters mounted to custom panel
Hanging lighted acrylic channel letter
Hanging lighted box sign
Push through lighted 3D sign

Backlit Acrylic Letters

Back­light­ing acrylic sign let­ters cre­ates a wow” fac­tor, draws atten­tion, and increas­es visu­al impact of wall mount­ed logos for clients vis­it­ing your office space.

John Wilk from Climax Media with ArtSigns Backlit Acrylic Sign Letters mounted to reception area wall

John Wilk CEO Cli­max Media with Art­Signs Back­lit Acrylic Sign Let­ters mount­ed to recep­tion area wall.

Rajan Kaushal of Tribecca with ArtSigns Backlit Logo Wall Sign pre-mounted to Wood Veneer Panel

Rajan Kaushal CEO of Tribec­ca with Art­Signs Back­lit Logo Sign pre-mount­ed to Wood Veneer Panel.

Backlit lobby sign mounted on ledge stone wall in reception area

Vir­tu­works sent us this pic­ture of a sign we made for them. They installed and wired the light­ed sign them­selves. We also pro­vide local instal­la­tion pro­fes­sion­als to help with back­lit sign installation.

Chrome Backlit Signs

Mir­rored signs are excel­lent can­di­dates for back­light­ing. The final result is eye-catch­ing, lux­u­ri­ous, and makes a grand state­ment about your brand. 

Chrome Backlit Sign mounted raised through reception desk area drapes at sales center
3D Backlit mirror sign letters raised through reception area drapes.

Mount­ing back­lit mir­ror signs raised through drapes in the recep­tion area of a con­do sales cen­ter can pro­duce a high impact effect. A fin­ish like this draws in prospec­tive buy­ers, empow­ers employ­ees and inspires faith and curios­i­ty in your brand.

How Backlit Signs Work

Back­light­ing requires a sep­a­rate wire to sup­ply pow­er to each let­ter. This wire is pulled into the wall and con­nect­ed either at the oth­er side of the wall or in the ceil­ing. The wires are rel­a­tive­ly thin and eas­i­ly con­nect­ed to a pow­er adapter. The pow­er adapter is sim­i­lar to a phone charg­er that sim­ply plugs into a reg­u­lar 110v pow­er outlet. 

If drag­ging the cable into the oth­er side of the wall or ceil­ing isn’t pos­si­ble, you can also drag the wire near a sock­et on the same side of the wall. This allows you to hide the cables from run­ning along the wall and clos­er to the pow­er source. Once the indi­vid­ual wires for each let­ter are con­nect­ed togeth­er, there is only one cable left to be plugged into the pow­er adapter to plug it into an outlet. 

Depend­ing on how the wall is struc­tured beneath the dry­wall, drag­ging the cables in this way may or may not be pos­si­ble. It is impor­tant to check with build­ing man­age­ment or the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny that con­struct­ed the space to see what type of struc­ture lies hid­den beneath the dry­wall. This will ensure a smooth final installation.

Backlit Panel Signs

Anoth­er option, if you would rather not have sep­a­rate wires for each let­ter is to pre-mount the sign to a frost­ed back­ground in which case you can either have a hid­den out­let behind it or you would only have 1 wire to pull as opposed to one for each letter.

The out­let you get needs to be a recessed out­let box so that the adapter can be hid­den in the wall because the sign will not have enough space behind it to fit an adapter if you use a reg­u­lar outlet.

Exam­ple of back­lit sign on frost­ed acrylic panel.

Backlit Signs and Shipping

Before ship­ping each cus­tom back­lit sign we ensure that the sign is func­tion­ing and every­thing works cor­rect­ly. Once you receive it we rec­om­mend care­ful­ly tak­ing it out of the box to ensure no dam­age has occurred dur­ing ship­ping or due to mis­han­dling while shipping.

Backlit letters and mounting template with cables, and tools

Backlit sign Installation

Although Instal­la­tion is easy and straight for­ward with our guid­ance, sup­port and easy to use instal­la­tion hard­ware and mate­ri­als, we do also pro­vide the ser­vice of pro­vid­ing qual­i­fied local sign installers to help you install your sign. We han­dle all the coor­di­na­tion work, includ­ing sched­ul­ing, and going over the details and require­ments of your cus­tom back­lit sign installation.

Backlit wall sign installers
Installed backlit wall sign

Many of our clients do opt to install their signs them­selves with great suc­cess. Oth­er­wise hav­ing us pro­vide an instal­la­tion crew for you makes order­ing a back­lit sign even easier.

Simplify your next Backlit Sign Project

We make the process quick and easy— from design­ing, and sug­gest­ing mate­r­i­al options to deter­min­ing details for instal­la­tion. Get in touch to help you quote and order your own back­lit office sign!

Get Quick Quote

Frequently Asked Questions

What power source do backlit signs need?

Back­lit signs typ­i­cal­ly use a low volt­age 12v pow­er source. The amper­age ranges between 5 — 15 amps. The adapter we include resem­bles a reg­u­lar cell phone charg­er you can plug direct­ly into a typ­i­cal 110 pow­er socket.

Can I choose color LEDs?

Yes, we also pro­vide the option of full-col­or RGB LEDs which allow you to select from any col­or on the spec­trum for the Lights on your sign. Please be sure to spec­i­fy RGB LEDs when order­ing if you pre­fer your LEDs to be in col­or. The default option are white LEDs. Addi­tion­al cost apply.

What if one of the LED’s burns out?

LED tech­nol­o­gy has come a very long way and we rarely see them burn­ing out. If any­thing, over time, it’s usu­al­ly the pow­er adapter that needs to be replaced and this can be done very easily.

Would you recommend turning the sign off when I leave the office OR is it fine to keep it on continuously?

It is best prac­tice to have your sign on a timer allow­ing it to turn off at night. Using a timer to strate­gi­cal­ly turn off the sign will great­ly extend the life of your sign. Unless that is, you have expo­sure to walk­ing traf­fic that will view the sign at off-hours. Even then, I would sug­gest set­ting it on a timer to turn off at times when it is least like­ly for any­one to be pass­ing by.

How long will it take to install my backlit sign?

It real­ly depends on the type of wall and how many indi­vid­ual let­ters and sym­bols there are in your sign. It usu­al­ly takes between 1.5hr — 3 hours to install a back­lit sign.

Can I install my Backlit sign on a shiny surface?

Although you can always install your sign onto a shiny sur­face, keep in mind the indi­vid­ual LED dots may show more. We sug­gest using a sur­face paint­ed mat­te as the back­drop for back­lit signs because it will help dis­perse the indi­vid­ual dots and pro­vide an even glow effect.

Can I install my Backlit sign on an uneven surface such as Ledge Stone?

Yes! You can install your back­lit sign on ledge stone, faux brick, or reclaimed wood sur­face where the depth varies. Just be sure that you have a gap behind the stone or wood through which you can pull the wires to pow­er the illu­mi­na­tion. You would think that you would need dif­fer­ent size spac­ers to accom­mo­date the dif­fer­ent sizes of stone. How­ev­er, what we nor­mal­ly do in this case is not use spac­ers at all! Rais­ing the let­ters and sym­bols on just thread­ed rods alone, with­out any spac­ers, gives you more flex­i­bil­i­ty, and pro­duces bet­ter results. This way you can sim­ply add a dab of sil­i­cone to the rods, push the rods into your drilled holes in the wall and adjust the height accord­ing­ly. The rea­son for this is that there is just way too much vari­a­tion in order to pre­pare spac­ers of vary­ing heights to align to every sin­gle depth. Some­times even the wall itself is uneven! This way you can adjust for that. It’s very easy and we use this tech­nique reg­u­lar­ly with great results!

Who does the installation if we choose that option?

We have local installers world­wide that can help you install your sign if for any rea­son you pre­fer to have some­one come in to install your sign for you. We just need you to pro­vide your full instal­la­tion address, details of where the sign is going, such as the type of wall it is going onto and a pic­ture of the wall so that we can share it with our installers and con­firm the instal­la­tion details and cost. Our signs also all come with an easy to use instal­la­tion kit, includ­ing instruc­tions, tem­plate, and mount­ing kit. If you do opt to install your sign your­self, we guide you through the process every step of the way, answer­ing ques­tions you may have so that your sign instal­la­tion goes as smooth­ly as pos­si­ble! If you are not sure whether you should install your sign your­self or have some­one help you install it, feel free to give us a call to go over the details so that we can rec­om­mend the best route for you! To find out more, call us Toll Free 18775164141.

How do the full Color LEDs work?

Col­or LEDs are called RGB LEDs. They are called RGB because each LED light, instead of just one white LED, has three sep­a­rate tiny bulbs for each col­or Red, Green and Blue. A blue­tooth con­troller, in this case an Android or iPhone app con­trols the inten­si­ty of each LED’s com­bi­na­tion of Red, Green and Blue which allows it to pro­duce any color.

Examples of Backlit Office Signs