Neon Electric Lighting Applications

The term "neon" is applied to bright colours, hot pink, yellow, orange and green textiles and apparel with a tendency to hurt the eyes. In more ways than one, enough to encourage the wearing of sunglasses at night.

Neon lighting entered popular culture in the first part of the 20th century, as a kind of touchstone to reality. Artificial lighting achieves a dramatic effect in an outdoor context. Artists work with coloured lamps or the translucent glow of a neon light-box. The average colour of neon is red-orange and it is used in lighting, where it adds the red colours found in lamps. For digital display of neon colours on computer screens the corresponding hexadecimal colour codes are:

"#FF3F00" - red
"#FF9900" - orange

Famous landmarks in neon include:

The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign on the Las Vegas strip.
Times Square, New York City.
Piccadilly Circus - although most of the old neon signs have now been replaced by LED displays.

Neon Timeline

c. 1902 - The French inventor Georges Claude (1870-1960) designed the first lamp by applying an electrical discharge to a sealed tube of neon.
11 December 1910 - Georges Claude displayed a neon lamp at the Paris Exposition.
1912 - Jaques Fonseque, Claude’s associate, sold the first commercial sign to a Paris barber.
1913 - “CINZANO" sign installed on the Champs-Elysees.
19 January 1915 - Georges Claude patented the neon lamp with the US patent office on
1923 - Georges Claude and his French company introduced neon signs to the United States. The first sign was installed in Los Angeles. A Packard car dealer, Earle C. Anthony, imported, two “Packard” signs for which he paid $24,000. The signs rapidly become popular, as their high brightness meant that an advertising message could be carried further, and with coloured lighting of equal candle power arranged according to range of visibility.
1926 - The first neon signs were turned on at Hibiya Park in Tokyo, Japan.
5 December 5 1933 - End of Prohibition. John Carway commissioned E.G. Clarke, Inc., to create a two-sided green harp for a “Bar” and “Tap Room,” at the Dublin House in New York City.