The brief
A fashion boutique & retail brand took a unit on a French high street with a pale limestone facade. The shopfront worked in daylight, but the previous tenant’s acrylic letters left with the unit and the brand’s window vinyl fought the stone. The brief was deliberately quiet: minimal illuminated letters that read as brushed metal during the day and glow softly after dark, plus a matching window sign so the outside and the inside of the shop present one identity rather than two.
Nothing decorative was wanted. The letters had to sit directly on the stone without a visible bracket, and the window graphic had to look weightless rather than like a box screwed to the glass.
What we built
We produced reverse-lit stainless steel letters for the fascia and a frameless edge-lit light box for the window. The facade letters are built as electroplated stainless steel channels with the light source hidden behind them, so the illumination escapes as a soft halo that washes the stone instead of shining out at the street. By day only the brushed metallic face is visible.
The window sign is a light box with no visible frame at all — the graphic appears to float against the glass, lit from its edge rather than from behind, which keeps the depth to a fraction of a conventional box.
- Facade letters: reverse-lit stainless steel channel letters with an electroplated metallic face finish
- Illumination: warm-white LED halo backlighting behind each letter, evenly spread with no visible lamping
- Finish: electroplated surface with a strong metallic finish, smooth seamless letter edges
- Weather rating: corrosion- and weather-resistant construction rated for indoor and outdoor use
- Window sign: frameless edge-lit light box, 6 mm edge profile with edge-mounted LEDs
- Mounting: concealed fixing onto the stone facade; flat mounting on the window frame, no visible hardware
- Colour and font: custom letterforms and a matched plating finish, so the window sign and the facade letters share one palette
Both elements come from standard catalogue ranges — the stainless steel back-lit letter signs for the facade and the frameless edge-lit light box for the window — so a replacement letter or a new window graphic can be ordered later against the same production files.
How the project ran
The brand supplied its logo artwork, the fascia dimensions, the window opening and a photograph of the shopfront. We returned a scaled letter drawing showing the letter height, the spacing across the fascia and where the concealed fixings would sit, so the sign could be checked against the stone coursing before anything was cut.
Because reverse-lit letters are read as much by their silhouette as by their glow, we produced a single sample letter first. The boutique signed off the plating tone and the halo spread at that stage, and only then did the full set and the window light box go into production.
The window sign was built from the same colour reference so that the two pieces match under the shop’s own lighting as well as on the street. Font weights were checked on the light box face, where a thin stroke can wash out under edge lighting if the graphic is not prepared for it.
Delivery and installation
The letters shipped in protective crates with a paper mounting template and individual wiring tails, each piece labelled with its position across the fascia. The boutique’s own contractor drilled to the template and clipped the letters on, then connected the low-voltage LED runs. The window light box arrived assembled with its graphic already tensioned in the frame and was fixed flat to the window opening in a single visit.
No specialist tooling is needed to look after either element. The window graphic is front-loading, so a seasonal campaign graphic can be changed later without disturbing the box or calling anyone in.
Outcome
The boutique now carries one brand system from the pavement inward: brushed stainless steel letters that sit quietly on the limestone by day and a warm halo glow after dark, with the same identity repeated on the window rather than replaced by a printed sheet. The facade stays architectural, the window graphic reads as lit glass rather than a box, and the only maintenance the shop has to think about is swapping the window graphic when a campaign changes.
