What the jacket is
LED neon is a strip of LEDs inside a silicone tube. That silicone sleeve is the jacket. It diffuses the light into a smooth line, and it decides what the sign looks like when it’s off.
- A white jacket looks white, a little like frosted glass, when the sign is off. Switch it on and it glows your colour. It is the classic look, and it means the sign reads as a neat white drawing on the wall by day.
- A coloured jacket is tinted to match the light. It keeps its colour by day, so a pink sign looks pink even when it’s off, and lit it can look a touch richer.
Neither is better. A white jacket is calmer in a light room and lets one sign suit any decor by day. A coloured jacket makes a statement around the clock, which is lovely in a bar, a nursery or a bold wall.
See both jackets with your words
Drag the slider below from off to on. The left tile shows a white jacket, the right a coloured one, both with whatever you last typed into the designer. Pick a colour from the strip to see how each looks by day and by night. Some colours only come with a white jacket; the strip says so.
Choosing the colour itself
A few things we’ve learned from drawing a lot of signs:
- Warm white is the most forgiving. It suits bedrooms, living rooms and weddings, and it photographs beautifully. If you can’t decide, start here.
- Pinks and reds read as neon. If you want the sign to say “neon” loudly, hot pink or red does it.
- Blues and greens are cooler and calmer. Ice blue is lovely in a modern room; electric blue and green are punchy in a games room or a bar.
- Think about the wall. A sign glows onto the wall behind it. Pale walls take on the colour; dark walls make the tube itself pop.
- Screens lie a little. Every phone and monitor shows colour differently. The designer is close, but not exact.
Two colours on one sign
Each line can have its own colour: warm white for “Mr & Mrs” over a hot-pink surname, say. Each extra colour adds , and the preview, the proof drawing and your basket show the colours line by line, so there are no surprises.
Colour-changing tube
Colour-changing tube can cycle through colours or hold any one of them, controlled from its remote. It suits gaming rooms, bars and anyone who can’t pick. Two things to know: colour-changing tubes are white when off, and they cost a little more than a single colour. The demo below shows your sign as one colour and as colour changing side by side, with the difference in price at the current size.
Colours that suit each room
- Bedrooms: warm white, candy pink or ice blue, usually on a white jacket so the sign is calm by day.
- Living rooms: warm white or golden yellow for a cosy glow; hot pink if the sign is the statement piece.
- Kitchens and dining rooms: warm white or orange, which flatter food and faces.
- Home bars: hot pink, red or electric blue on a dark wall, often with a coloured jacket.
- Nurseries and kids’ rooms: soft colours like ice blue or candy pink, dimmed low at night.
- Gaming rooms: colour changing, so the sign can match whatever else is glowing.
These are starting points, not rules. If you love a colour, it will look right in your room.
Colours in photographs
Neon is often bought to be photographed, so it helps to know how cameras see it. Phone cameras tend to brighten neon until the core of the tube looks white and the colour only shows in the glow around it. Turning the brightness down with the dimmer brings the colour back. Warm white and pinks photograph most reliably; deep blues and violets can look darker on camera than in the room, so step them up a notch if photos matter.
A quick way to decide
- Where will you see it most, by day or by night? Mostly by day, consider a coloured jacket.
- Is the room calm or bold? Calm rooms suit warm white or a white jacket.
- Will you want to change the mood? Colour changing gives you every colour from one sign.
Whatever you choose, the proof drawing we send within 12 hours names each colour, and changing it at that stage costs nothing.