Front-Lit Channel Letters
The faces are made from translucent material so the LEDs inside can shine through and illuminate whatever color the faces are. Only the faces of the letters are illuminated because the rest of the channel letter is opaque. We can use pre-colored acrylic or lay vinyl on top of white acrylic if you want a specific color or pattern to be displayed.
Reverse-Lit Channel Letters
The whole channel letter is opaque except for the back which is clear. The letters are installed spaced off of the wall so the light creates a halo effect around each letter. Reverse-lit channel letters are also called halo-lit channel letters because of this illumination effect. Since the faces or sides don’t need to be illuminated, we can keep them as aluminum or paint them any color. Reverse-lit channel letters are a good choice if you don’t have a specific color that you want your logo to be at night time. We can use different colored LEDs but most people go with white. Since the letters are illuminated from the back, the letters just look black.
Compound Channel Letters
This is the type of sign we made for Coldwell Banker. For the returns, we used bronze aluminum and the faces were cut from acrylic that we laid digitally printed vinyl on to match their logo color. We also made the trimcaps bronze. For the back of compound or reverse channel letters we always use Lexan which is a UL listed clear acrylic. White LEDs were installed inside of each channel letter so the face illuminates blue from the digitally printed vinyl and the letters will have a white halo around them that shines onto the wall.
There are so many different options within each style of channel letter signs so we can definitely create something that will look great for your logo. You can get some ideas for your channel letter sign by checking out photos of different front-lit channel letters, reverse-lit channel letters, and compound channel letters that we’ve made.