Illuminated signs

Three ways to light a letter

A channel letter lights through the face, out the back, or through the sides. That choice decides what the sign looks like after dark, and it's the first thing to settle — before anyone talks about materials.

Face-lit. A translucent acrylic face with LEDs behind it: the face is what lights up. The returns stay opaque — on a standard channel letter the sides do not glow. This is the retail classic and the most legible from a distance.

Backlit (halo). The face is opaque — usually aluminum — and the light spills out the back against the wall. The letter stays dark, ringed in a halo. Quieter, more upmarket, and a favourite for offices and clinics.

Side-lit. The returns are translucent, so light comes out through the sides — on its own or alongside the face. The letter then reads from every angle, including on the skew along a storefront.

How we build them

The return — the side wall of the letter — is cold-formed from aluminum coil on our bender. Corners are notched and clinched, riveted or welded, which gives a crisp edge that doesn't open back up through freeze-thaw cycles.

Faces are CNC-routed from cast acrylic, then trim-capped or flush-bonded depending on the finish you're after. LEDs are energy-saving, high-efficiency modules laid out at a calculated pitch so you don't get hot spots reading through the face.

Painted returns and faces come out of our own booth on the AkzoNobel Grip-Gard system — the line built for sign work, not a generic coating.

Every sign is wired, lit and left running on the bench before it gets packed. That's the step an inspection finds out about when it's been skipped.

Four ways to hang the letters

This gets settled early, because it changes how many holes go into the facade, what servicing costs later, and how the sign reads in daylight.

Direct to wall. Every letter is drilled and fixed individually, so the wall shows between them. The cleanest look — and the most holes in the facade, which some landlords will not allow.

On a raceway. An aluminum box roughly 5 to 8 in deep, fixed along the length of the sign, holding the wiring and the power supplies. One hole through the wall, and a failed supply is replaced by lifting the cover.

On a wireway. Slimmer than a raceway and carrying only the wiring; the power supplies sit inside the wall. Tidier to look at, but the day a supply fails the sign has to come off the building to reach it.

On a backer. A shallow aluminum box — 1 to 4 in, most often 2 in — with an open back and a clean front, which the letters mount onto. Unlike a raceway it is meant to be seen: cut to shape and painted, it becomes a frame that lifts the lettering off a busy facade.

Put simply, a wireway costs you at install, a raceway costs you at service, and a backer is first of all a design decision. Tell us which matters most for the building and we'll build to it.

What UL certification actually gets you

Our illuminated signs are built with c UL us Listed components: power supplies, LED modules, wiring and grounding. This isn't a decorative claim — most municipalities on the South Shore and in Montreal require it at permit stage, and an insurer can decline a claim on a non-compliant sign.

We also hold R.B.Q. licence 5778-2740-01, which is what general contractors ask for before they'll put a sign supplier on a job site.