LED lightboxes in your retail fit-out
When incorporating lightboxes as a part of your retail fitout, these are elements to consider.
What is an LED?
The abbreviation LED stands for Light Emitting Diode.
LED lighting has two important advantages. It’s energy efficient and has a long lifespan. LED lighting comes in various different colours. The colour of the generated light depends on the materials from which the LED is made.
Why an LED lightbox?
LED Light Boxes have become a great way of enhancing your retail environment by attracting and engaging customers attention.
If you are going to invest in a lightbox it’s important to consider a few key things! What profile should I use?
Large double side profiles or slimline profile.
Lightbox Placement
Where will you place the lightbox and how big can you go?
Commonly, lightboxes are attached to walls, gondolas and pelmets. Bright lightboxes at the rear of your space can help attract interest. Hanging from the ceiling or in a window can be an effective way to deliver messages. Strategically placed freestanding double sided lightboxes can be effective and easy to re-position according to changing showroom plans or Planograms.
What kind of illumination?
What kind of illumination gives the best results?
We have tried and tested many LED lights. We have found the following two lights offer the best solution, Edge-Lit and Ladder-Lit sometimes referred to as Back Lit. Deciding between these light sources generally comes down to size. Smaller light boxes are suited to Edge Lit, but once you extend beyond 1000mm wide you will often see greyish or uneven dull patches in the centre. You should use Ladder Lit for the larger sizes.
We would recommend Ladder Lit for larger lightboxes
The secret of even light is LED strips called ladders that create an array of LEDs behind the entire fabric graphic, ensuring a strong and evenly distributed light. Larger format boxes require the use of Ladders ensuring there is uniform light distribution. These large lightboxes can come with voltage controls or dimming switches to manage the light intensity.
Ladder Lit lights are brighter and deliver even light.
Mean Well transformer – voltage controls
LED Ladder verses
Edge-Lit Lighting
Wall mounted LED Ladder Lit
2400 mm wide x 2200mm high
Freestanding Double Sided LED Ladder Lit 1000mm x 1800mm high
Wall mounted LED Edge Lit
2400 mm wide x 2200mm high
Freestanding Double sided LED Edge Lit 1000mm x 1800mm high
Colour Temperature
Colour Temperature of the light source (Kelvin)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature
In simple terms, colour temperature is a measurement of the“whiteness” of a light source. We typically see light bulbs in the hardware store which are warm light or yellow, neutral in colour tone and cool light, blue in tone.
In our lightboxes it is essential to have LED lights that are‘Daylight’ or 5,500 Kelvin, this is considered as natural light ensuring that the printed graphics, logo and colours will match your other printed marketing materials.
SEG, Silicone Edge Graphics
The only way to achieve graphics that have great colour and are a perfect fit every time is to use dye-sublimation. In the sublimation process, the ink has dyed the fabric through a heat and pressure process, the colour is inside the fabric at the molecular level rather than a solid ink sitting on top of the fabric.
This process delivers a fantastic high resolution and colours accurate print quality.
Flexible Fabric Graphics
The sublimation process allows for the fabric to stretch or flex, which means they are easy to install, the graphics are virtually crease free and can be shipped cost effectively, folded in a bag. Sublimated graphics can be easily stored
and reused.
Subject to the size of the graphic they can also be washed in a normal washing machine. An everyday example of sublimation graphics is the printed cyclist’s lycra clothing.
So make sure that your lightbox graphics are dye sublimated.
