Whether you are a hopeless romantic or a Valentine’s Day Grinch, single or in a relationship, young or old, this year we invite you to participate in the feast of love. The threat of hate and hostility underlying recent socio-political events have brought Valentine’s Day of 2017 to have particular importance as an occasion not only to manifest love within romantic relationships, but also to show brotherhood and solicitude.
As advertising strategists discovered decades ago, neon has a unique power to attract attention and to elicit a strong response. Which is why we believe it is the ideal medium to spread love, Trump the hate and honour Saint Valentinus.
On the other hand we cannot really claim that we came up with this idea ourselves. It has been quite some time since somebody decided that neon, alongside poetry and songs, is the language of love…
Maybe because writing with light is like writing with fire.
The brightness and phosphorescence of neon give it an otherworldly impression that makes it particularly apt to express those deep and abstract feelings that are so hard to convey. Banal and overused words acquire new life as their message burns through the aura of superficiality and boredom that often surrounds them. It is almost as if every time you look at a word or a symbol in neon you see it for the first time.
If you check out our past projects you will quickly realise how many of them are about love – for coffee but also love for people. Look through our Instagram page for some ideas!
Maybe because it is a heart-warming light in the dark.
When love words are put into neon they acquire a new dimension. Perhaps because of neon’s history as a medium for advertising, it transforms any message into a proclamation. Conveying a feeling through neon means immortalizing it! Get a preview of neon’s supernatural capacities by inserting your special message into our online configurator.
Olivia Steele, I Like Where This Is Going, 2015
Olivia Steele uses her neon artworks to question contemporary culture and society. She contrapposes intimate words in neon to landscapes, to create irreverent narratives in which the tension between the two elements reveals the prosaicness of our semiotics. Have a look at her inspiring work here.
Maybe because it screams to the world a message coming straight from your heart.
Conversion of sound into light is a technique generally used in computer modelling and terahertz radiation generation, but you can also use it to set off that physical process that is the melting of a person’s heart :).
Bring the two love languages of music and neon together for an unmatched romantic gesture: make a neon of “your song”, with our online configurator you will be able to see the result in seconds!
Victoria Lucas and Richard William Wheater, Twelve Months of Neon Love, 2012
Inaugurated on Valentine’s day 2011, Twelve Months of Neon Love is a series in which Victoria Lucas and Richard William Wheater made enormous neon signs of lines of classic love songs and set them onto the rooftop of their workshop in West Yorkshire, England. Each month they put up a new sign with a new song. Being visible from the train the messages warmed the hearts of commuters on the way home from a hard day’s work. To see the complete series have a look at this article.
Maybe because it’s frank and bold.
It seems that the apparent counterintuitiveness of using a sharp instrument such as neon to express personal feelings results in a more realistic rendition of the intense and sometimes brutal business that is love.
Jung Lee, I Love You With All My Heart, 2010
Part of the Aporia series, this neon is born as an interpretation of Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discoursem – a story about the ineptitudes of people in love. Jung Lee sets neon lights into natural landscapes to invite viewers to think about the mysteries and curiosities of love. The series includes many more heart-stopping works, have a look at them here.
You can use our letter edition to compose names, words and sentences!
Maybe because it doesn’t wither.
Valentine’s day and love gestures don’t need to be cheesy – if you need some inspiration to channel modern romance or if you’re looking for some precious love cynicism take a look at Tracey Emin’s neon series about love.
Tracey Emin, Sorry Flowers Die, 1999
Tracey has mastered the art of neon art since she got onto it late in the 90s. In her series about love she uses the crudeness and sharpness of neon to articulate the brutality of love brought about by cultural expectations. Six of her messages about love were digitally animated on Times Square in February 2013 as a valentine to the Big Apple.
If Tracey inspired you or you already have a design in mind, whether it be a scribble, doodle or even a stylized portrait, send it to info@sygns.com and we will convert it into neon for you!