Five stages, one drawing
An LED neon sign is simple to describe and fiddly to make well. It is a flexible strip of LEDs inside a silicone tube, shaped into letters and fixed to a sheet of clear acrylic, with a cable running to a power supply. The skill is in the shaping: how smoothly the tube follows a curve, how cleanly the letters join, how evenly it glows.
The five stages are below. This is everything that arrives in the box at the end of them.
1. Drawn: the proof you approve
When you order, a designer turns your design into a production drawing: the exact words and lettering, each line’s colour, the overall width and height, and the outline of the acrylic backing. We send you that drawing within 12 hours, and nothing is made until you approve it.
This step matters more than any other. A neon sign is made to your words, so the drawing is the contract between us. Check the spelling, the line breaks and the size; tweaks at this stage are free. Once you approve, the sign is made exactly as drawn.
2. Shaped: tube along the lines
The LED tube is shaped along the centre line of each letter, following the drawing. Script lettering is the trickiest, because the tube has to flow through loops and joins without kinks, while block lettering needs crisp corners. Where a letter can’t be drawn in a single run of tube, it is split into sections that meet invisibly, and the LEDs are positioned so the glow stays even across the join.
This is also why some very fine lettering has a minimum size. Below a certain letter height a tube simply can’t follow a tight curve, so the designer only offers sizes each lettering can actually be made at.
3. Mounted: the acrylic backing
The shaped tube is fixed to a sheet of clear acrylic. You choose the backing in the designer: cut to the outline of your letters, a rectangle panel, or a table stand. The acrylic is drilled for the fixing you picked, the cable is routed neatly to one edge, and the finish you chose, from clear to gold mirror, goes on here.
4. Powered: the whole chain together
A sign is only as good as the parts it plugs into. Every sign leaves with its power supply, and the supply comes with a UK plug, never a travel adaptor. Add the optional dimmer and remote in the designer and you can take the sign from full brightness down to a gentle glow.
5. Boxed: packed to travel
The sign is packed with its kit and sent with free, tracked delivery across mainland GB. Your sign arrives 7–10 working days after you approve your proof drawing, and the designer and your basket show the dates for your postcode before you order.
Tell us as soon as you can if it arrives damaged. This doesn’t affect your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
What you can check at each stage
You won’t be standing at the bench, so the process is built to give you something to check at the moments that matter. Before you order, the designer shows the price, the size and the delivery dates for your postcode. After you order, the proof drawing shows every measurement, line break and colour, and it is the thing we make to. Once you approve, the clock starts, and the next thing you hear about is the dispatch.
If anything in the drawing surprises you, that is the moment to say so. Common requests are a slightly bigger size, a tighter or looser backing outline, a line split differently, or a colour swapped. None of them cost anything before you approve. After you approve, a change means a new drawing, and if the sign is already being made, possibly a new sign, which is why we ask you to check carefully rather than quickly.
Logos follow the same route with one extra step: a designer first redraws your artwork as tube lines, simplifying any detail that a tube can’t follow, and shows you exactly what has changed in the mockup.
Why we make them here
Most neon signs sold in the UK are made overseas and shipped in. Making ours in a UK workshop changes three things you will notice. The lead time is counted in working days rather than weeks. The person who answers your message can walk over to the bench where your sign is being made. And the plug is the one in your wall.
If you want to see the difference between this kind of sign and the traditional glass sort, our guide to LED neon versus glass neon goes through it honestly, including where glass still wins.