Chicha Poster vs Neon Signage
チチャ・ポスター / ネオンサイン
Chicha Poster comes from Regional Graphics and Neon Signage from Signage and Display. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Chicha Poster
Lima's cumbia shows produced a fluorescent poster style. Hand-drawn letters in day-glo pink and green on black shout loudly enough to be read from a passing night bus, and the look is now reclaimed as the aesthetic of Andean migrants to the city.
Neon Signage
The commercial sign style of bent glass tubes glowing as letters and pictures. Hong Kong's street-spanning character signs and Las Vegas's escalating light wars built each city's nighttime visual language.
| Chicha Poster | Neon Signage | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1980s– | 1912–1990s / revival |
| Family | Regional Graphics | Signage and Display |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Fluorescent color on black / Heavy hand-drawn letters / Layered silkscreen / Maximum night visibility | Lines of bent glass tube / Glowing letters on the night sky / Signs projecting over the road / Blinking and chasing motion |
| Best used for | Gig and festival posters pasted outdoors that must read at night from afar · Signage and shopfront visuals for bars and clubs selling heat and speed | Making a sign that announces a shop's position from far down a night street · Staging the excitement of an entertainment district in colored light and motion |
| Type | Letters drawn very heavy, outlined outward until they seem to glow | Letterforms drawn in one continuous tube, complex characters kept from thickening |
| Composition | Black ground packed with lettering, dates and venue gathered at the foot | Project over the sidewalk, deciding the upward viewing angles first |
| Material | Fluorescent pink and green screened over black, the ground left showing | Gas and coating chosen per color, blinking chased in one direction |
| Caution | Putting the fluorescents on white kills the glow, destroys the night legibility the style was designed around, and simply looks cheap. | Substituting neon look LED tape loses the depth and bloom of glass tube, and the imitation gives itself away the moment you stand close. |