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Retail Lighting
Candleabra
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| Brighten up your library. |
Lite Brite Neon is pleased to introduce our new line of cold cathode lighting designs. Our special, handcrafted lights are made to produce a warm, happy light that beats away the blues and banishes seasonal affective disorder.
All fixtures use special Tecnolux Tri-phosphor coated 8mm tubes, producing a bright, beautiful consistent light, with a Color Rendering Index of up to 95%. Our light fixtures blend warmer tone whites (2800-3000°K) with daylight-balanced white (4500-5000°K) to produce the perfect color.
This fixture can be set upon a table or anywhere you need a little light.
Candelabras start at $3,000 (shipping and installation not included).
Floor Lamp
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| Excellent for dark corners. |
Our charming floor lamp brings humor into any room and helps illuminate dark corners with a happy, healthful color-balanced light.
All fixtures use special Tecnolux Tri-phosphor coated 8mm tubes, producing a bright, beautiful consistent light, with a Color Rendering Index of up to 95%. Our light fixtures blend warmer tone whites (2800-3000°K) with daylight-balanced white (4500-5000°K) to produce the perfect color.
The floor lamps are available with a transformer and built-in dimmer, and are also available in custom sizes, colors and dimming options.
Floor lamps start at $4,000 (shipping and installation not included).
Chandeliers
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| Hang up your blues. |
Our popular neon chandelier fixture emits a warm, pleasant light that is similar to sunshine in brightness and cheeriness. This stylish, eye-catching fixture has been featured in New York magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, and other magazines.
All fixtures use special Tecnolux Tri-phosphor coated 8mm tubes, producing a bright, beautiful consistent light, with a Color Rendering Index of up to 95%. Our light fixtures blend warmer tone whites (2800-3000°K) with daylight-balanced white (4500-5000°K) to produce the perfect color.
The chandeliers are available with a transformer and built-in dimmer, and can hang from a distance of up to 100 cm (3’) from the transformer. Standard chandeliers have overall dimensions of 64x50x50 cm (25”x20”x20”), and they are also available in custom sizes, colors and dimming options.
Chandeliers start at $2,400 (shipping and installation not included).
Wall Sconces
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| Isn't she lovely? |
Our wall sconces offer the same color options as the chandeliers, but are designed for lower light situations and wall mounting. The stock sconce size is 38x41x20 cm (15”x16”x8”) and is also available in custom sizes and color combinations.
Sconces start at $1,400 (shipping and installation not included).
You can find our fixtures at these fine establishments:
- Lite Brite Neon Studio; 232 3rd St. Suite C1B (corner of 3rd Ave.), Brooklyn NY 11215, 718.855.6082
- Lee Bryan Interior Design; 814 Juniper St, Suite 2, Atlanta Ga 30308, 404.817.3313
For more information, read about our retail lights in T: The New York Times Style Magazine, New York Sun, New York magazine, Metropolis magazine, and the San Francisco Chronicle. |
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Recent Press: From the New York Sun, April 2005
Neon lighting surely wasn't what Tennyson had in mind when he wrote "The Charge of the Light Brigade." Yet it seems an apt description of Lite Brite Neon, the Brooklyn-based studio invading the home-lighting market with a line of witty neon light fixtures.
Matthew Dilling, the studio's affable and unpretentious founder, has at 26 assumed a key role in the neon renaissance gripping the city. New York has always been keen on window-shopping and display, and some of our chicest hotspots such as Stella McCartney's Meatpacking District store and the Lever House, owe their new window dressings to Lite Brite Studio.
Now, with a line of neon chandeliers and wall sconces, Mr. Dilling and his staff have made their first foray into the consumer goods arena. The two items are sold at the Future Perfect in Williamsburg (115 N. 6th St., 718-599-6278) and Fashion/Plate in Nolita (264 Elizabeth St., 212-219-9212) for roughly $2,000 and $1,000, respectively. (They are also available, by special order, through Mr. Dilling's studio.) Two newly unveiled designs - a candelabra and a floor lamp ($3,000 and $4,000) - will be available in April.
With their subtle use of white and gold, the chandelier and candelabra have a ghostly sheen that wouldn't look out of place in a postmodern production of "The Turn of the Screw." The floor lamp and wall sconce, on the other hand, incorporate dandelion-yellow and royal-blue tubing to evoke the more urban, pop effect we traditionally associate with neon - a 1980s vibe.
The invention of Lite Brite Neon's home-lighting line came about last fall, as the saying goes, through necessity. "I needed a chandelier for our office," Mr. Dilling explained. Sure enough, an all white version of the model hangs in his high-ceilinged work space. The design itself is something of an inside joke. "It's a chandelier made for holding light bulbs, not candles," which references "the original design of electric chandeliers," Mr. Dilling said. In other words, just as fancy incandescent bulbs mimic the thing they replace - the peaked shape of the candle - so this neon chandelier evokes the rounded shape of what it hopes to usurp: the generic GE "soft white" light bulb.
Bringing neon illumination into the home may have a result beyond mere aesthetics. Neon mimics the mood-elevating effects of natural light much more effectively than incandescent or fluorescent light (capturing 98% of the spectrum, as opposed to 68%-75% for other light sources). In other words, those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder can now battle the winter blues in style.
Lite Brite Studio will continue to produce custom-made pieces - say, your name in neon - for a price ranging from $400 to $50,000, depending on the project. Most impressive about Mr. Dilling's portfolio is how little of it is traditional (which, in the case of neon, can mean tacky). Mr. Dilling's art school background and high-end design com missions have kept him from complacency. "We've never had to do a 'Salon' or 'Open' sign," he said, laughing.
Mr. Dilling learned the trade of neon lighting in high school, from Craig Kraft, a Washington, D.C.-based light artist who teaches at the Smithsonian Institution arts program. ("My sister's art history teacher took a class from him," said Mr. Dilling, recalling the roundabout way he landed in the field.) Mr. Dilling enrolled in the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, but left after two years; he was already managing a robust commercial business, which didn't sit well with the art school.
There were also "some safety and liability issues" with the neon workshop he had jimmied into his small studio at the school. In 1999, Mr. Dilling left New York for Brooklyn, and Lite Brite Neon was born. A neighbor in Williamsburg recommended Mr. Dilling work on a Diane von Furstenberg runway show, which led to a job doing lights for Bergdorf Goodman's windows.
Since then, clients such as Gap, Burberry, Calvin Klein, and repeat customer Ms. McCartney have used Lite Brite Neon's services. Mr. Dilling has also collaborated with such well-known artists as Keith Sonnier, Joseph Kosuth, and Bruce Nauman.
What's behind the current rage for everything neon? "It's partly an ironic approach," admitted Mr. Dilling. (No stranger to irony, he keeps a version of the dreaded 'Salon' sign in his studio's bathroom.) "My clients are engaging the fact that neon has an existing role in an urban vocabulary." Translation: the stores are keen to evoke the heyday of New York glam - which for neon was the 1920s and 1930s. (The studio also holds an archive of classic neon signs, including a martini glass and "Diner" sign that he rents out to film sets and party promoters.)
Technically, the studio's march into the retail market does not constitute "mass production," because neon must still be crafted by hand. "The process of making neon hasn't changed much since Tesla invented it," Mr. Dilling said. (Nikola Tesla, a photograph of whom adorns both Mr. Dilling's studio and Web site, invented neon in 1893. "He's often overlooked," Mr. Dilling added.)
The making of neon can be a painstaking process, though Mr. Dilling's precision and speed make it look exciting. Tubes (which are mass-produced) are heated up with a blowtorch until flexible, then curved by hand into the desired shape. Using special vacuum equipment, Mr. Dilling fills the design with various gases - helium, argon, mercury, and, of course, neon - to create the desired color, then heats the entire fixture to 450 degrees Fahrenheit until the electrical current pushes all the impurities out of the tubings. The creation is then set aside to "age." Several hours later, the color is set, and the fixture is complete. (For a full explanation of the process and the colors possible, visit www.litebriteneon.com.)
As the gases are inert, the environment isn't inherently dangerous, Mr. Dilling said. (His use of equipment "stolen from the trash at MIT" when he was an art student in Boston doesn't, however, inspire faith.) It's actually the flame that you have to be careful of. Jim Berkovich, a freelance "bender" - as the makers of neon are called for their shaping of the tubes - in Mr. Dilling's studio recently burned his hand for the first time in his 13 years of working with neon. "So it really can happen anytime," Mr. Dilling said. (While demonstrating the process for me, Mr. Dilling wore neither gloves nor goggles. "Glass is a very good insulator," he said.)
Lite Brite Neon, 718-855-8062, www.litebriteneon.com.
