ConturaLED is the pride and joy of Alain Schindler, CEO of the illuminated advertising media producer Westiform. The innovative light-emitting electrodes, or LEDs for short, which Westiform has just launched, think for themselves: They light up exclusively when it is dark enough, and only as brightly as is necessary for the perception of the lettering. This saves energy and costs.
And this is how it works: ConturaLED works with ambient light control, which reacts to the ambient brightness via sensor. In addition, ConturaLED only installs as many electrodes as are really needed to optimally illuminate the lettering: The light points are placed individually along the font contour. This is not possible with conventional LEDs, whose light points are arranged "on a string" as in a chain of lights. Anyone who wants to optimally illuminate an LED lettering with such a chain has to lay one or two unnecessary loops. Inside industry-standard LED illuminated signs, the electrode chains therefore often wind in many curves - and emit more light and consume more power than necessary.
Light moments "LED alone is nothing special. Even in the first James Bond film, the agent had LEDs in his watch," says Thomas Ondrisek. Ondrisek is a senior development engineer at Westiform. He developed ConturaLED together with his team. "The special thing about ConturaLED is that it follows the outline of the letter and has a light sensor that reacts to brightness. So the lettering is slightly brighter than its surroundings all the time and thus always optimally visible." As dusk falls, the illuminated letters turn on at full brightness and then slowly dim down as it gets darker. That's because the lettering is easy to see in the dark anyway. The same happens at dawn: as it gets brighter, the lettering also gets brighter and brighter until it is no longer visible against the daylight. Then it switches off. Because the loss of light is thus reduced to a minimum, ConturaLED reduces energy consumption and CO2 emissions by up to 80 percent compared with neon signage. ConturaLED's standby power consumption is also minimal.
The individual LEDs are produced in the exact color of their cover material, so at Coop, for example, in dark and light orange. This additionally reduces the light emission and makes the colors appear more intense. In addition, for the first time, the illuminated lettering can be produced exactly according to the colors of the CI/CD, which was only marginally possible with neon lettering. "Our customer can precisely specify the desired color effect of his neon sign," emphasizes Ondrisek. "The coloring of the electrodes and the ambient light control make it possible."
Clean inventionConturaLED has other positive effects as well: In a normal power supply network, the biggest power peaks occur early in the morning and in the evening, because in the morning many people switch on the light, blow-dry their hair and make coffee at the same time. In the evening, they come home from work, turn on the lights and the stereo, and cook themselves something delicious. It is precisely at these peak times that ConturaLED fixtures consume the least electricity - and thus relieve the strain on the power grid. Because there is virtually no unused light emitted into the environment with ConturaLED, light pollution is noticeably reduced. In addition, such illuminated signs are less attractive to flies, mosquitoes and other creatures. ConturaLED signs therefore also need to be cleaned much less frequently.
Existing neon or LED lettering can be easily converted to ConturaLED. If lettering that is to be equipped with ConturaLED is newly manufactured, it is even possible to save some of the plastic used to produce the letters. This is because the LED system requires less space behind the plastic cladding than neon tubes. So with ConturaLED, even the icing on the cake is right.
Sustainability out of passionThere are many good arguments in favor of ConturaLED, but for Coop, the low energy consumption and the sustainability of the system were the decisive factors in choosing the new technology. Coop has been a customer of Westiform for a long time and is predestined to use ConturaLED. This is because the company made a commitment to the federal government in 2004 to increase its energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions. By 2023, Coop wants to be CO2-neutral. ConturaLED fits in perfectly with this strategy. By changing its light sources, Coop is reducing its annual CO2 emissions by 20 tons and its energy requirements by almost two gigawatt hours per year. This is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 400 to 600 households. "Our investment in this retrofit is no more expensive than investing in industry-standard LEDs," says Georg Weinhofer, head of Coop's Energy/CO2 department. "But ConturaLED reduces our electricity and maintenance costs. So in the medium and long term, we're driving cheaper, even though we're acting sustainably. That's really unique." Coop's investment should already have paid for itself after around two years, estimates Westiform boss Alain Schindler.
Westiform has just started installing 750 Coop letterings with ConturaLED throughout Switzerland. In the long term, Coop will replace all of its 4250 letterings, some of which are still illuminated with neon, with ConturaLED illuminated letterings.
Schindler and Ondrisek expect that other companies will soon become enthusiastic about ConturaLED: "Sustainability has long been an issue. But if you no longer have to pay extra for environmentally friendly behavior, but can save a little, the cause gains in clout. In the future, companies and agencies should already have the environmental idea in mind when planning a new CI/CD." It probably won't be long before other companies follow Coop's shining example.
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm
Illuminated advertising: hand and mouth work
Would you have known? What lights up on the roofs of Coop, Credit Suisse and Publigroupe is pure handwork. To form each illuminated letter, Westiform makes a wooden model. Plastic parts heated in an oven are then bent around this into the desired shape. The letters are also glued together and sealed by hand. Only in this way can Westiform achieve the high precision for which the company is known. In order to produce the good old neon tubes, which are becoming increasingly rare, but are still needed, Westiform also operates its own glass blowing shop. Here, too, everything is hand-, pardon: mouth-work.
The family-owned company Westiform, headquartered in Niederwangen, is considered a leading company for illuminated advertising throughout Europe. Westiform was founded in 1998 and traces its roots back to the US-based Westinghouse Group. The company is 87 percent family-owned, maintains five production sites and sales companies in Europe and overseas, and employs around 500 full-time staff. www.westiform.ch
Shines in different colors: the Publicitas logo.
Bosch illuminated font.
