One of the UK's last Neon sign makers is fighting to keep the "endangered" craft alive.
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00:00I'm Julia Bickerstaff and I'm a neon maker. I own a company called Neon Craft and I've been making neon for a very long time now.
00:09I started in 1987 and, you know, it's just great. I love it as much now as I did then and I have made neon for all sorts of situations and places all over the world.
00:22And it's been a fantastic journey, it really has. And as technology has changed over the years, so has the appetite for neon.
00:30So the things that were lit with neon have changed. Traditionally it was everything was lit with neon.
00:35Even if you didn't know it, it had neon behind, lighting it up. But today, neon making is actually an endangered craft, which is kind of sad really.
00:45But it's the way things go and technology has advanced. There are simpler technologies in some respect to install.
00:52Neon's made of glass and the new technology, LEDs, is not and it's quite rugged and can be handled quite roughly, whereas neon being glass is quite fragile.
01:02So you can imagine the actual process of change that has taken place for installing.
01:08For example, I do feel for sign fitters that are 100 foot up the side of the outside of a building with a fragile piece of glass trying to install it, they'd much prefer some LEDs.
01:18They can just stick on with some double-sided sticky tape to do it. So you can imagine why and their appetite for change really.
01:25Also, LEDs can mimic neon, even though they're not neon. There is a little bit of a battle there at the moment where neon is being sort of sidelined by LED neon-esque signage.
01:39They're sold as neon signs when they're not and this has had a really quite detrimental effect on the traditional glass-made neon.
01:48So I think there is something of a future, albeit it will be very, very different and I think it will be something of a struggle in the future for people who make neon to be able to carry on and make a good living.