DIY Neon Sign for your Brand
Last year I was curious about how are made neons so I asked my colleague if he had an idea and an idea he had ! He showed me that fascinating documentary about asian guys handcrafting neons. If you have 11min, just take a look at that video !
Thank you my friend Toki-Woki (website) you are the best developer on earth. People has to know that.
I decided that I wanted a neon for my own band : Révérence. I asked my other friend Luc Borho (website), best designer on earth if you could design me a custom logo which could be good as a neon. The letters had to be linked for example.
This is what he drew :
And it was perfect for me !
It was high time I thought about how to realize that sign.
As you can see the result is very very cool ! Let me tell you how I achieved it.
The Neon:
I found on the internet a smart wire that is called EL-Wire, for ElectroLuminescent Wire. It is very flexible and thin. You can put it everywhere you want and you can power it with a battery or a classic power supply. It does not use a lot of energy and it does not heat up.
One more good point ? Of course! It costs almost nothing !
I got mine from here : the ugliest website of the decade.
The Support:
I bought 3 black foam bords for 6€ and it was done!
That one is yellow I know. At a time, I wanted a yellow board with a blue neon. I changed my mind
Let’s cook !
I had the logo, the neon and the board.
I printed the logo on three A4 that I taped together. Then I taped them on the board and I started to cut the board with a cutter following the printed lines.
Sometimes, for the R and accent on the E, I could not have a linked line so I made a hole at the ends of the lines to put my el-wire in to make it reappeared from behind.
I put some glue in the rails I had cut in the foam board. Then in that rail I slided in the thin strip of the el-wire. That strip is very convenient and allows you to glue the el-wire almost everywhere.
And after some tricky part when I had to bend the wire, the loop of the small “r” for example, everything was glued and at the good place. Here is the result:
I bring it to every show we have and it has a lot of success each time !
Here is a picture taken during one our show, there is no post fx. No filter !
You can check some sound of the band here : myreverence.com
Have a good day !