Outdoor Sign Lighting
Dion Signs
Dion Signs delivers custom, color-changing design within customer’s tight budget, with RGB LED sign modules and controllers from Elemental LED
“Our Account Manager told us that the LED modules would be brighter than the competition, and we tested them out and they were.”
Ron Dion, Owner
Dion Signs
Central Falls, RI
Summary
Goal: Fulfill a specific customer request to light a custom-shaped outdoor restaurant sign with color-changing lights that match the look and functionality of the lights inside.
Challenge: Find a high quality flexible, waterproof LED lighting solution that utilizes RGB color-changing technology, and does not exceed the customer’s tight budget.
Result: By sourcing PuralightTM RGB LED Sign Modules and RGB color controllers from Elemental LED, Dion Signs successfully lit the customer’s sign to their unique specifications and delivered a full-color customization package with advanced functionality that was easy for their customer to utilize.
Elemental LED Value: By working with Elemental LED as their LED vendor, Dion Signs was able to cut their expected costs of color-changing RGB products in half while maintaining their high standards of quality and design.
Challenge
Ron Dion, owner of Dion Signs, knows that retail business owners are on tight budgets these days. Feeling the sluggish pace of the economy, businesses are cutting costs everywhere they can. This poses a significant challenge to the sign fabricator, who knows that while replacing or upgrading a sign is a significant financial investment, it can also drastically increase a business’s customer base.
Dion Signs has first-hand knowledge of this fact. “One business we worked with doubled their sales within six months by replacing their sign,” says Ron Dion.
To ease his customers’ financial concerns, Jeremy Hosegood, Creative Director of Dion Signs, creates a platform of options for his customers, so that he can provide them a base design of what they came in for, as well as a few upgraded options that show a bigger impact. “Cost is of the utmost importance. The companies we work with are on a budget,” says Hosegood, “So we want to be able to provide our customers with something even better than what they ask for without a significantly higher investment.”
When Shark Bar and Grille in Providence, Rhode Island came to them with a specific request, Dion Signs knew they had a new challenge. Located on Thayer Street, one of the busiest pedestrian thoroughfares in town, Shark Bar is one of the main attractions on the street. The inside of the restaurant is lit up with color-changing lights that are set frequently to a color scheme that matches a holiday or event. The owners wanted this same color-changing functionality on their outdoor sign to add that extra wow factor and be the biggest focal point on the street.
The shape of the sign, which included a large aluminum shark and two smaller fish, required the low profile design and flexibility of color-changing LED light modules. Dion contacted all of the company’s suppliers, but none had a product that would accommodate the shape and color-changing requirement of this sign.
In addition, Dion was concerned about the expense of the project. He estimated that the costs of the RGB lights and color controllers would bring him way over the budget his client provided.
Solution
Dion branched out from his regular sign and lighting suppliers in order to find his customer a viable solution. He found Elemental LED while browsing the web and was immediately impressed with the breadth and quality of the company’s line of UL-listed LED sign modules, which offered an IP rating of 67, kelvin rating of 6500, several form factors, and an RGB color-changing option.
He contacted the company and was set up with an Account Manager, who quickly gave him a quote based on the diagrams Dion had provided. Dion was pleasantly surprised by the total cost of the RGB order, which was less than half of what he expected it to be, and included all of the RGB sign modules, RGB controllers and 12V drivers needed for the three sections of the sign.
The owners of Shark Bar couldn’t have been happier with the final outcome of their sign. Dion Signs remained in budget without having to sacrifice any elements of the design. The PuralightTM RGB LED sign modules from Elemental LED sculpted to the form of the sign perfectly. The RGB controllers offered more functionality than originally requested, and allowed them to remotely change the colors, brightness, speed and mode of the lights at the push of a button.
Moving almost completely into LED lighting and away from lamps and neon lights has helped Dion Signs offer a superior product at a competitive price. Using LEDs eliminates the costs of breakages, and the flexibility in size and shape of LED modules have allowed Dion Signs to create high-quality halo and face lit signs that compete with larger national sign companies.
As LED lighting companies like Elemental LED continually improve their LED sign module products, other types of sign lighting are beginning to fall by the wayside. For example, the full line of PuralightTMSign Modules from Elemental LED offer light quality that is true white and brighter than its LED and non-LED predecessors.
“Our Account Manager told us that the LED modules would be brighter than the competition, and we tested them out and they were,” says Dion. “It’s nice to know that we can trust what Elemental LED has to say.”
