Neon has been the gold standard for eye catching illuminated signage since it was first popularized in the 1910s. With the increasing availability of LED signs, many vendors use the term “Neon” as a way to refer both to glass neon LED neon. There are big differences between the two, and it’s important to understand them before making a decision on what kind of sign to design for or purchase.

Material aesthetic

Glass neon is made from hand bent glass tubes that are illuminated 360º, giving it a unique timeless artisanal quality that is unmistakable. The tubes are bent backwards and around to form shapes and letters, and posted a short distance away from the mounting substrate, giving it a sculptural quality that rewards the eye when viewed from different angles.

Neon sign made for a film set

Designing for glass neon is like making a line drawing without picking up your pencil - for the design to work it has to either be made from one continuous tube or from several sections of tube connected by electrodes and wire. The sections of tubing that aren’t meant to stay in the final design are simply bent back and painted out.

LED neon sign for liquor company

LED neon on the other hand, is made from LED tape installed into engraved acrylic with a flexible silicone channel embedded over it to diffuse the light. The LED and silicone need to be embedded or glued into the acrylic to hold their shape, so signs made this way can only provide up to 180º of illumination. The low voltage wire connections between shapes and letters are thin and discrete, and many people see LED neon as a simpler way to execute their design without the painted out tubes and larger wire connections in the background of glass neon.

Color

Glass neon has fewer commercially available colors than LED neon, but they are more highly saturated and vibrant. The color of glass neon comes from the color of the gas it’s pumped with, the color of the phosphor coating, and the color of the glass itself - these can have many different combinations and can produce very rich vibrant light. LED neon gets its color from the color of the LED strip and the color of the silicone that diffuses it. One major advantage of LED neon is RGB control, which is not possible in glass neon except through animating stacked neon tubes.

Glass neon in an acrylic box for a performing artist

Glass neon colors can also appear to have dimension to them when in clear or colored uncoated tubes, because the color of the gas itself is seen refracted through the color of the glass. LED neon on the other hand, while having more options and greater versatility when it comes to dimming and programming, are generally more subdued and can sometimes look spotty or dim at the connection points.

Cost

LED neon is significantly cheaper than glass neon - this is due to the cheaper material cost as well as low-skill labor involved in LED production. Glass neon tube benders are highly skilled craftsmen/women that need training and years of experience to work in a production shop. With LED neon, the design is engraved with a CNC router, and anyone with introductory skill level in LED wiring and soldering can assemble from there with the right tools and hardware.

Example of and LED neon sign during the assembly process

Fragility

Glass neon is fragile, and requires special handling for transportation, shipping, and installation. Once installed, glass neon remains fragile and can be an expensive fix if it breaks. LED neon on the other hand can be shipped, handled, and installed with very little risk of damage.

Neon packed in a foam lined wooden shipping crate

The fragility of glass neon is one of the main contributing factors to its higher cost compared with LED neon. Glass neon signs have to be very well protected during shipping, which adds to size and weight of the load, and does not fully eliminate the risk of breakage. LED neon can be shipped in lightweight, small cardboard boxes and have an extremely low chance of damage during shipping.

Versatility

Glass neon tubing is structurally rigid once bent, so it needs minimal support compared with LED neon. Neon can be mounted to a panel or frame, or directly to a wall, as well as mounted around 3D sculptural shapes.

Glass neon mounted to sculpted bust for a Manhattan retail display

LED neon on the other hand, needs to be either embedded or glued to a substrate - otherwise the silicone will not retain its shape. This limits LED neon to “flat” designs backed in a substrate, almost always clear acrylic. Glass neon has sculptural applications that can give it a more minimal appearance when designed with its material qualities in mind.

Glass neon chandelier in our Brooklyn office

Overview

Glass neon is undoubtedly a higher quality and more versatile product overall, but there are added costs that come along with that. Clients that don’t necessarily care for that unique look and feel of neon or don’t have a 3 dimensional application might be better off going with the lower cost option of LED neon. In applications where RGB control or complex animation is needed, LED is definitely the better option. Glass neon will always have a timeless appeal that can not be accurately imitated in LED for those applications where light quality and aesthetic are crucial.

Neon signs are made by using specialized torches to accurately bend glass tubes. Signs are made by heating up lengths of tubing and bending them into shapes according to a printed design or pattern. Common size range for commercial neon signage is 8–15 mm in diameter, which are sold in 4-5’ lengths.

The tubes come from the manufacturer as either clear or colored glass, and they can also have an additional phosphor coating on the inside of the tube to get brighter and more complex colors. Once the tube bender has completed the design and welded electrodes onto each end of the tube, it gets filled with a noble gas mixture, usually neon or argon. The color of the light emitted from the final product depends on the color of the glass tube, the type of gas used, and the phosphor coating.

Types of colored glass tubes available for neon bending

The image above is a list of colored glass tubes from a local manufacturer. These tubes have colored glass and phosphor coatings on the insides, which makes these the the brightest, most vibrant and saturated neon colors available.

Types of clear glass tubes available for neon bending

The image above shows the clear glass options from the same manufacturer. A neon sign made with these gets all its color from the type of gas reacting with phosphor coating on the inside of the tubes. While these colors may not be as saturated and vibrant as those of colored glass tubes, they are used to achieve a wider range of colors where basic red/green/blue/yellow would not work.

Some neon signs are made with clear tubes with no phosphor coating. These signs get all their color from the type of gas used to fill them. Clear tubing filled with neon gas produces the an reddish/orange color with the electrified gas clearly visible inside the tube. This being the cheapest and simplest tube to make, it also has a “classic neon” look to it.

A clear uncoated tube filled with neon gas

A clear tube without a phosphor coating can also be filled with argon, although this is less common. Clear tubes pumped with just argon give off a soft purple light which some people find beautiful, but it’s not so common in commercial signage because it’s not as bright as neon.

A clear uncoated tube filled with argon gas

Although rarely seen in clear uncoated tubes, argon gas is more commonly used in coated tubes, where the insertion of mercury inside the electrode significantly increases the brightness of the tube.

Inserting mercury into an uncoated colored glass tube

Different combinations of colored glass, phosphor coating and type of gas used in the tube can create nearly endless color combinations. These manufacturing choices are usually best left to tube benders or experienced neon designers who be able to take into account not only the aesthetic priorities of the client but also lead times from manufacturers and local availability of tubing stocks.