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 1⁄2″ 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

A custom fabricated aluminum lighted panel for Toronto Global, featuring an illuminated logo with red and blue geometric shapes and white 3D lettering. The backlit sign is mounted on a white feature wall behind a reception desk, with a corporate team pointing toward the brand display.

This pro­fes­sion­al office envi­ron­ment fea­tures a fab­ri­cat­ed alu­minum light­ed pan­el cre­at­ed for Toron­to Glob­al. The sign is a back­lit pan­el design where the light is con­tained with­in a met­al box struc­ture, allow­ing the white ​‘Toron­to Glob­al’ text and col­or­ful logo ele­ments to be bright­ly illu­mi­nat­ed from with­in. Unlike stan­dard back­lit acrylic let­ters , this light­ed sign uti­lizes a sol­id pan­el con­struc­tion to cre­ate a high-con­trast, pre­mi­um look suit­able for cor­po­rate lob­bies and recep­tion areas.

Close-up of a Versapay custom backlit office sign featuring raised 3D letters mounted on a white rectangular panel with soft blue LED halo lighting.

A pre­mi­um cor­po­rate lob­by sign for Ver­sa­pay show­cas­ing raised, dimen­sion­al let­ters. The sig­nage uti­lizes ener­gy-effi­cient LED back­light­ing to cre­ate a dis­tinct blue halo effect against a clean white mount­ing pan­el, pro­vid­ing a mod­ern, high-con­trast look for pro­fes­sion­al office interiors.

A large, custom-formed 3D logo "C" suspended from a white ceiling pipe. The sign is constructed from 1/8" white acrylic and wrapped in bright orange and yellow 3M translucent films, creating a vibrant, internally illuminated brand display for a sales center.

This hand-formed acrylic chan­nel let­ter is a mas­ter­class in high-vis­i­bil­i­ty brand­ing for a con­do sales cen­ter. Engi­neered for both dura­bil­i­ty and visu­al ​“pop,” the con­struc­tion features:

  • Sub­strate: Pre­ci­sion-cut 1⁄8″ white acrylic, cho­sen for its supe­ri­or light-dif­fus­ing prop­er­ties to ensure a smooth, hot-spot-free glow.
  • Fin­ish: Wrapped in pre­mi­um 3M Translu­cent Films in vibrant orange and yel­low, pro­vid­ing rich, sat­u­rat­ed col­or that main­tains its hue whether the sign is unlit or inter­nal­ly illuminated.
  • Cus­tom Fab­ri­ca­tion: The let­ter exhibits expert hand-form­ing, result­ing in clean, seam­less curves that cre­ate a high-end, archi­tec­tur­al feel.
  • Sus­pend­ed Mount­ing: Designed for mod­ern inte­ri­ors, the sign is hung via a sleek white pipe from an exposed ceil­ing, inte­grat­ing per­fect­ly with indus­tri­al-style duct­work and track lighting.
  • Dimen­sions & Depth: The deep-pro­file ​“C” logo offers a sig­nif­i­cant 3D pres­ence, mak­ing it a focal point in open-con­cept retail or sales environments.
A rectangular, brushed stainless steel hanging box sign. The brand name "davidrose" and a decorative script logo are precision-cut into the metal, glowing with bright cyan-teal internal LED illumination. The sign is suspended from the ceiling by thin metallic cables.

Ele­vate your brand’s phys­i­cal pres­ence with this sophis­ti­cat­ed, ceil­ing-mount­ed light box. Craft­ed from high-grade brushed stain­less steel, this sign offers a con­tem­po­rary, archi­tec­tur­al aes­thet­ic per­fect for lux­u­ry retail, bou­tique hotels, or mod­ern cor­po­rate offices.

Key Fea­tures:

  • Pre­ci­sion Crafts­man­ship: The face fea­tures clean, laser-cut sten­cil­ing for both the ​“davidrose” word­mark and its intri­cate flour­ish logo, ensur­ing sharp edges and pro­fes­sion­al detail.
  • Vibrant Inter­nal Illu­mi­na­tion: Equipped with high-effi­cien­cy inter­nal LEDs that emit a strik­ing cyan-teal glow, pro­vid­ing high vis­i­bil­i­ty and a mod­ern ​“push-through” light effect.
  • Durable Con­struc­tion: The five-sided stain­less steel box pro­vides a stur­dy, seam­less look that hides all inter­nal wiring and components.
  • Seam­less Sus­pen­sion: Designed for over­head dis­play, it includes dis­crete top-mount­ed hard­ware for secure sus­pen­sion via thin air­craft cables or rods.
  • Low Main­te­nance: The brushed fin­ish is resis­tant to fin­ger­prints and tar­nish­ing, while the LED tech­nol­o­gy ensures long-last­ing per­for­mance with min­i­mal pow­er consumption.
An interior wall-mounted brand sign for "Peace Point." On the left, the word "Peace" is rendered in solid, non-illuminated 3D teal letters. On the right, the word "Point" consists of white push-through letters that glow from within a large, blue rectangular backplate. A happy customer stands beside the sign with arms outstretched.

Hybrid Dual-Fin­ish Cor­po­rate Wall Sign

Make a bold state­ment with a mul­ti-dimen­sion­al sig­nage sys­tem that plays with light and tex­ture. This ​“Peace Point” instal­la­tion show­cas­es how mix­ing illu­mi­nat­ed and non-illu­mi­nat­ed ele­ments can define your brand’s personality.

Key Fea­tures:

  • Dimen­sion­al Con­trast: The first half of the brand name uses cus­tom-cut, non-illu­mi­nat­ed 3D let­ters in a mat­te teal fin­ish, pro­vid­ing a clean and pro­fes­sion­al look.
  • Push-Through LED Tech­nol­o­gy: The sec­ond half fea­tures illu­mi­nat­ed push-through let­ters. Acrylic let­ters are pre­ci­sion-milled and pushed through a rout­ed met­al face, allow­ing light to emit from the front and the edges for a ​“halo” effect.
  • Inte­grat­ed Back­plate: The illu­mi­nat­ed por­tion is housed in a large, round­ed rec­tan­gu­lar blue back­plate, which hides the LED mod­ules and wiring for a com­plete­ly seam­less appearance.
  • Ener­gy Effi­cient: Pow­ered by low-volt­age LEDs, pro­vid­ing a bright, even glow with min­i­mal heat out­put and long-term durability.
  • Cus­tom Col­or Match­ing: Per­fect­ly coor­di­nat­ed brand col­ors across both the sol­id dimen­sion­al let­ters and the illu­mi­nat­ed box.

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.

A backlit corporate logo for "CLIMAX" mounted on a white wall. The dark blue dimensional letters are offset from the wall, with cool white LED light glowing from behind them, creating a halo effect. A man in a blue shirt stands proudly next to the sign.

John Wilk CEO Cli­max Media with Art­Signs Back­lit Acrylic Sign Let­ters mount­ed to recep­tion area wall.
This instal­la­tion uti­lizes a ​“halo” effect to cre­ate a high-con­trast, pre­mi­um look that appears to float on the wall.

Descrip­tion:

  • Style: Reverse-chan­nel or halo-lit dimen­sion­al sig­nage.
  • Let­ters: The let­ters are craft­ed from sol­id-faced, opaque mate­ri­als (like­ly met­al or thick acrylic) fin­ished in a deep navy blue.
  • Light­ing Effect: Low-pro­file LED mod­ules are housed inside the back of each let­ter. By mount­ing the let­ters with stand-offs (spac­ers), the light reflects off the wall sur­face, cre­at­ing a soft, sophis­ti­cat­ed glow — or ​“halo” — around each character.
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.

Key Fea­tures of the Installation

  • Inte­grat­ed Design: The back­lit logo is pre-mount­ed direct­ly onto a wood veneer pan­el, pro­vid­ing a fin­ished, archi­tec­tur­al look.
  • Pro­fes­sion­al Brand­ing: The sign fea­tures the Tribec­ca name and logo, illu­mi­nat­ed with a crisp halo effect.
  • Clean Fin­ish: By pre-mount­ing the sign to the pan­el, the instal­la­tion like­ly sim­pli­fies the wiring process while main­tain­ing a sleek, mod­ern aes­thet­ic for a pro­fes­sion­al office environment.
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.

That is a fan­tas­tic instal­la­tion! The con­trast between the sleek, back­lit Vir­tu­works logo and the tex­tured ledge­stone wall cre­ates a real­ly pre­mi­um, mod­ern feel. The cool-white LED glow does a great job of mak­ing the sign ​“pop” against the uneven sur­face of the stone.

It’s impres­sive that they tack­led the wiring and instal­la­tion them­selves, as stone walls can be noto­ri­ous­ly tricky for mount­ing and hid­ing cables.

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. 

A close-up, angled view of a luxurious backlit sign for "THE BOND" condo sales office. The large, 3D stainless chrome letters feature a mirror finish and "halo" illumination


Pre­mi­um Illu­mi­nat­ed Sig­nage: ​“THE BOND” Toron­to Sales Office

This cus­tom-fab­ri­cat­ed sig­nage rep­re­sents the pin­na­cle of mod­ern archi­tec­tur­al brand­ing, specif­i­cal­ly designed for a high-pro­file Toron­to con­do­mini­um sales center.

  • Con­struc­tion: The sign is com­posed of reverse chan­nel (halo-lit) let­ters craft­ed from high-grade stain­less chrome. The mir­ror-pol­ished fin­ish pro­vides a reflec­tive, liq­uid-met­al look that changes appear­ance based on the sur­round­ing environment.
  • Light­ing Effect: Each let­ter is off­set from the mount­ing sur­face, allow­ing the inte­grat­ed LED mod­ules to cast a soft, dif­fused warm white glow back­ward. This ​“halo” effect ensures the brand name remains leg­i­ble while cre­at­ing a sophis­ti­cat­ed, ambi­ent atmosphere.
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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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 1−877−516−4141.

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.

The gap between the wall and the sign plays a big role in how much of a halo glow you will get around the let­ters. With a small­er gap, the LEDs will have less dis­tance to spread out which will decrease the halo glow around the let­ters. With a larg­er gap, the LEDs will have more dis­tance to spread out which in turn increas­es the halo glow around the let­ters. We gen­er­al­ly include 1−1÷4″ spac­ers for back­lit signs because we find this dis­tance to pro­vide the best effect. For wood slat walls or uneven sur­faces such as ledge stone or wavy sub­strates we some­times will not include spac­ers and sug­gest man­u­al­ly set­ting the dis­tance using a block or object that is between 1 to 1−1÷4″ to keep this opti­mal dis­tance to pro­vide the best glow.

A flat or mat­te wall paint or fin­ish gen­er­al­ly works bet­ter for back-lit signs than semi-gloss or gloss. Mat­te paint tends to dif­fuse the LEDs on the back of the sign bet­ter and allows for a soft­er, broad­er and more even glow. Glossy or semi-gloss wall fin­ish­es may reflect indi­vid­ual LED dots mak­ing for a more spot­ted glow. 

Back­lit signs tend to show up best against lighter col­ored walls because light col­ors reflects light bet­ter than dark­er col­ors. That is not to say that a dark­er wall won’t work, the effect may just not be as intense because some of the light may get absorbed by dark­er colors.