Skip to content
It’s increasingly hard for retailers to stand out from the competition and get customers’ attention. Compelling signage, especially retail signs accented with dynamic lighting, is a powerful tool for grabbing attention.
Jim Nordquist, owner of the custom wholesale sign manufacturer Viscom Architectural Graphics in Largo, Florida, offers three tips to create compelling retail signs.
Light It Up with LEDs
Whether customers drive or walk by your store, you have a few brief seconds to make an impression. For a long time neon was the signage choice to create a strong first impression. But neon has its downsides. It requires a whopping 15,000 volts of power, and the power supply must run to every part of the sign, often through walls — making it less than ideal to install in hard-to-reach or heavily trafficked areas.
Lighting up signs with LEDs makes your message more visible. Signs with LED lights use 12 volts, significantly less power than neon. Nordquist says the low voltage of LED retail signs is safer for everyone. “Anyone can literally walk up and touch a LED sign.”
Plus, retail signs made with LEDs can last 50,000 hours, keeping your signs bright for years. Compared with neon, “signs with LEDs are much easier to install,” Nordquist says. “They can go virtually anywhere.”
Get Creative
Nordquist says the latest generation of LEDs is conducive to doing small, intricate work and design. For one of Nordquist’s clients, Viscom used LED light strips to illuminate acrylic sign letters. “Without today’s higher-density LED light strips, achieving a lighting effect like this would have been blotchy and uneven,” he says.
The smaller LED size also makes it easier to light signs from within. “Today’s higher-density lights make for more even light distribution, meaning we’re able to pack more light into the same space than ever before,” Nordquist says.
The flexibility of LED light strips also makes it easier than ever to get creative. A big change has been for point-of-purchase displays. POP signs previously used an exterior light source to light up the front of the display, but now small-sized LEDs can be placed inside POP displays, making them easier to install anywhere in-store.
Use Quality Products from a Trusted Vendor
Viscom is a UL-listed shop, meaning any products it uses have to be UL listed. Nordquist says it was important to find a lighting partner like HitLights that provides quality and reliable UL-listed products.
And when it comes to creating compelling outdoor retail signage, Nordquist says you also have to factor in water-resistant lighting. “HitLights offers IP67 water-resistant products that we can use in exterior signs.”
Working with a trusted partner is also important given the custom nature of Viscom’s work. As Nordquist explains, “we’re constantly approaching them with new ideas. They’re the first vendor we’ve worked with who listens to us and is able to supply us with the lights to complete our clients’ projects.”
For help creating a compelling retail sign with LEDs, contact our sales team.
About HitLights
HitLights delivers LED lighting solutions for event exhibits, displays, signs, theater and film productions, and manufacturing. CEO Bin Yu formed the company through the Louisiana State University Business Incubator Program in 2010. Since then HitLights has grown to become a major player the LED industry. Customers come to HitLights for quality products, helpful customer service and creative solutions.