Acrylic laser cutting has always been one of our most popular laser cutting services – and with good reason. Not only is acrylic hard-wearing, available in a wide range of colours, thicknesses, and sizes, and uber versatile, but this plastic material is also low-cost when compared to other laser cutting materials, which makes it an ideal choice for small businesses, independent artists, and even just customers and clients looking to book a once-off laser cutting projects (i.e. for wedding invitations, custom holiday creations, etc.).
Recently, our laser cutting specialists have actually been receiving a decent amount of queries surrounding acrylic laser cutting for business signage. From glossy indoor signage to matte, high-visibility outdoor store signs and even matching laser engraved acrylic business cards, acrylic laser cutting has extensive benefits (and a wide range of design options) for your business.
Today, our laser cutting team at Vector & Raster Laser Services are here to unpack all the top trends surrounding acrylic laser cutting to inspire your business’ next acrylic laser cutting project, alongside giving their top tips for how to get the best results from your acrylic signage concepts.
The Benefits of Acrylic Laser Cut Business Signage
The primary benefits of acrylic laser cut business signage are already fairly well known: think cost-efficient, highly durable, and the incredible versatility of acrylic materials allowing for a wide range of design options – and all in fully customisable shapes, layers, and colour combinations.
But what you might not know about acrylic is that despite being low-cost and easy to buy in bulk, acrylic plastic sheets are also durable, boasting great weather resistance and even UV resistance. This means that your acrylic business signage will be guaranteed to maintain their colour and text visibility for years and years.
Much like traffolyte plastic, acrylic is also great for layering, allowing for laser cut creations with two-toned finishes. For instance, if you were after a striking red sign with white lettering, all you’d need to do is laser cut the lettering out of your red acrylic sheet and then place a white underlay to create the white text. Semi-transparent acrylic sheets or lighter-toned opaque sheets can also easily be installed with LED lighting to create easy illuminated business signage – ensuring your branding is visible across all hours.
And if you’re after a single layer of laser cut acrylic, you can select from glossy, matte, or even glittery finishes to provide a high-contrast finish that still meshes well with your business branding. Simply put, the versatility of laser cut acrylic can help bring your company logo to life, creating durable, hard-wearing finishes that provide a similar timeless feel to wood laser engravings.
So to recap, here are just a few of the key benefits of using acrylic laser cut materials to produce business signage:
- Cost-effective material makes acrylic suitable for bulk order projects
- Suitable for interior and exterior signage installations
- Durable, weather-resistant, and UV-resistant
- Can be installed with LED lighting for illuminated business signage
- Available in a range of colours, finishes, sizes, and thicknesses
- Suitable for layering to create different colour combinations
Top Trends in Acrylic Laser Cut Signage
As we’ve outlined, one of the major advantages of laser cut acrylic signage is that you can cut acrylic into a wide variety of different shapes and sizes. The ability to install acrylic laser cut business signs with LED lighting also opens up a range of options for styling your acrylic creations. So what trends are signmakers following when designing and creating acrylic signage?
Combining laser etching with laser cutting
You can use acrylic for laser etching as well as laser cutting. The laser etching process with transparent acrylic sheets creates eye-catching frosted text that makes for great interior business signage or even wall decals in commercial spaces.
Creating layered designs
Again, acrylic sheets can be layered to create multi-coloured creations, allowing you to fully customise your acrylic business signage to match your brand colours. We’re seeing more laser cut acrylic business signage using the layering technique, both to enjoy multi-coloured designs and also to increase the thickness of their business signage to further support outdoor installation.
Cutting custom shapes
Acrylic laser cut decorations are ideal for all seasons. For instance, laser cut creations like flat, acrylic baubles with personalised designs and text are becoming very popular stocking fillers around the holidays.
This versatility in design also makes acrylic laser cut creations ideal for PoS displays. With precision laser cutting producing clean edges every time, your acrylic laser cut designs can easily include specific shapes, patterns and silhouettes.
Check out our custom perspex laser cutting project to see just how particular you can get with your acrylic laser cut designs.
Neon lighting with acrylic backboards
Another trend that’s skyrocketing in popularity is pairing laser cut acrylic signs with both traditional glass neon and modern LED neon lighting. This eye-catching illumination idea creates a dynamic, glowing effect, helping your business signage stand out on even the foggiest nights.
Clean-edged wall mounting
Alongside being a great material for laser cutting, acrylic is also pretty easy to work with when it comes to installing mounting brackets and even drilling holes for screws. With just a little care and measuring, you can add evenly spaced drill holes right to the edges of your acrylic laser cut signage without worrying about snapping or cracking your designs.
Best Practices: How to Get Great Results from your Acrylic Laser Cut Signage Project
Select the right thickness
If you’re installing your acrylic business signage outdoors, you’ll need to consider factors like wind and even birds. A sign that’s too thin may topple over when exposed to harsh winds, or sag under the weight of pigeons or cockatoos taking a breather.
If you’re uncertain what thickness or size is best for your laser cut acrylic designs, our laser cutting team can make some suggestions to ensure your final products are built for longevity.
Avoid overly intricate cutout designs
Whilst acrylic laser cutting is known for its versatility, it’s important to keep in mind that any gaps between letters or design elements in your business signage is likely to be a lot larger and heavier than the same gaps on handheld acrylic creations. This is why overly intricate designs are more likely to break or accrue contact damage when compared to solid, single piece designs with fewer cutout details.
Use vector file formats
Vector file formats can be scaled to any size without losing their quality, which makes them the best file type for working with laser cutting technology like CNC machines. If your files aren’t already in vector format, our laser cutting technicians at Vector & Raster Laser can help out here by reformatting your image files and sharing them prior to laser cutting for your approval.
Secure High-Quality Acrylic Laser Cut Signage for your Business
With over twenty years of experience producing high-quality laser cut business signage for entrepreneurs, makers, and artisans all over the country, Vector & Raster Laser Services is the preferred independent laser cutting technician for local small business owners and big iconic brands alike.
Our acrylic laser cutting technicians have worked on a wide range of projects, ensuring that they can draw from a wealth of experience when optimising your designs. Suffice to say, you can always expect the best possible results when producing your laser cut acrylic business signage with Vector & Raster Laser Services.
Want to learn more about our acrylic laser cutting services? Get in touch with our team today to chat all things acrylic business signage and more, or enquire through our website to receive a no-obligation quote on your next laser cut acrylic project.
