Channel letter signs are a very popular style of sign, especially for building signs. Loyola Marymount University is a parent school to many different campuses, one of which is LMU School of Film and Television in Los Angeles, California. They were interested in getting a building sign that could change colors, so we made them a channel letter sign with color changing RGB LEDs.
Standard LEDs only come in white, red, blue, green and amber, and the hues can’t be adjusted. RGB stands for red, blue, and green. RGB LEDs combine those three colors to produce over 16 million hues of light. There are a few colors that are difficult to achieve, but RGB LEDs are usually the best option for a client that wants a custom LED color. The LEDs are remote controlled so our client can change the color as needed. An important thing to note is that if you plan on changing the LED colors, this needs to be specified when the sign is being permitted. Otherwise, we can use RGB LEDs to provide a custom LED color, but the color cannot be changed.
Channel letters are hollow metal letters that can have LEDs inside of them for different styles of illumination. A typical channel letter has faces that illuminate. This is typically done by putting LEDs inside of the letters and making the face from a translucent material. These can also be called front-lit channel letters. The signs we made for Loyola Marymount University are reverse-lit channel letters. The entire letter is solid, but the back is clear so the LEDs create a halo-effect around the letters as they shine onto the wall. These are also called halo-lit channel letters. When we install these reverse-lit channel letters, they’re spaced off of the wall a little bit to make sure that the LEDs have room to illuminated on the wall.