The brief
A UK hotel group was refurbishing the principal elevation of a city-centre property and wanted its name in solid metal rather than another flat illuminated panel. The requirement was a halo-lit — that is, back-lit — installation: electroplated stainless steel letters standing off the stonework, with a soft glow spilling onto the facade behind each letter instead of a bright illuminated face.
Because the letters sit on an exposed exterior wall, the same brief carried an outdoor requirement. The signage had to keep both its metallic finish and its light output through driving rain, wind and winter frost, and it had to remain serviceable letter by letter without putting scaffolding across the whole elevation.
What we built
We produced a halo-lit metal letter set on an electroplated stainless steel return, with LED modules recessed behind each letter so the light washes the wall rather than the face. The name was engineered as one matched group — a single stroke weight, a single stand-off depth and a single colour temperature across every letter — so the elevation reads as one piece of typography rather than a row of individual signs.
- Letter construction: electroplated stainless steel return with a hand-finished metallic face (matching catalogue spec: Stainless Steel + Electroplated Finish + LED Backlight)
- Illumination: back-lit (halo) LED — SMD LED modules driven by MEAN WELL™ constant-current drivers at 12/24V DC
- Stand-off: concealed stand-off posts hold each letter clear of the wall so the halo stays even along every stroke
- Return depth: 80 mm return, within our standard 30 mm – 150 mm letter-depth range
- Outdoor exposure: weather-sealed housings and sealed LED modules — outdoor IP65 construction with weather-sealing options
- Mounting hardware: 1:1 layout template, wiring diagram, installation notes, and stud bolts, washers and nuts supplied with the set
The same front-face geometry can also be produced with an acrylic-and-steel build where a lighter letter weight is preferred, which is why we keep a matched alternative in the catalogue.
How the project ran
Signage is a physical product, so the process is deliberately front-loaded. The hotel’s design team supplied the name as vector artwork together with photographs and dimensions of the facade. We returned a scaled 1:1 letter layout showing stroke weight, spacing, stand-off depth and total elevation width, and the client signed that off before any metal was cut.
We then produced a single prototype letter so the group could judge the electroplated finish and the halo intensity in daylight and after dark. Only once the prototype was approved did the full set go into production. That sequencing matters on a facade job: the letters are fixed to a building the client cannot easily rework, so brightness, spacing and return depth are settled on the bench, not on site.
On this project the main engineering question was the stand-off. Too shallow and the halo collapses into a hard shadow line; too deep and the letters look detached from the facade. We settled the depth against the wall’s own tone so the glow reads as a soft wash behind the metal. Because the elevation was in regular use throughout, the set was also split into individually wired letters so a single unit can be removed and replaced on its own studs.
Delivery and installation
The completed letters shipped via air freight in cushioned crates, each letter protected on its finished face. Every crate carried its own 1:1 mounting template and wiring diagram, so the hotel’s appointed local installer could drill and fix the set without us on site — which kept site access and scheduling under the client’s own control.
Installation followed the 1:1 template: fix the studs, hang the letters, connect each pre-wired unit back to the driver, and commission the circuit. Because the letters were numbered and mapped to the template during production, the fit-out required no on-site guesswork about which letter belonged where.
Outcome
The hotel now carries a solid-metal name sign that reads as polished typography in daylight and glows softly across the facade after dark. Because the letters are individually mounted and wired, a damaged unit can be replaced against the original production file without disturbing the rest of the set. New artwork can be added to the same elevation — a second entrance, a restaurant fascia — and still match the existing letters in weight, depth and glow.
