PUBLICATION CENTER

One of the big benefits of the digital revolution has been the ability to print almost any image to almost anything for almost endless application possibilities. Every time someone reaches what seems to be a last frontier, a new frontier for custom image making appears on the scene.

Night Light Designs in Wheaton, Ill., has brought a gallery of images – from fine art and photography to designs kids color in and apply to nightlights – to bedrooms and hallways across America. Night Light Designs’ owner, Rose Hanbury, started the sideline business about a year ago.

Since that time, the business has grown beyond a mere sideline (though Hanbury still has a day job) as they’ve licensed artists for backlit nightlight reproductions and built a strong shopping website around their growing product line.

Customers can choose between pre-designed and custom nightlights in landscape and portrait styles (3 3/4 in. x 3 in., and vice-versa) that can work as a traditional nightlight or as accent lighting. The latest custom product from Night Light Designs is called the Glowtastic U-Draw Light Kit, geared toward children who want to create and color their own nightlight covers.

Hanbury prints a line drawing selected by the child with an inkjet printer on LexJet 7 Mil AquaLight Backlit, or simply sends a blank piece of the material for the child to color. Hanbury says finding a material that could be colored with markers was fortuitous since the usual backlit material they use for the pre-printed nightlights, HP’s Premium Vivid Color Backlit Film, does not.

“Our LexJet account specialist, Kara Work, has been an excellent resource. She helped us find a backlit that would work with markers, plus she found one that’s translucent enough that kids can use it to trace line work,” says Hanbury. We tried it at home first with our daughter and found that the color is magnificent when you backlight it.”

The nightlights include a custom frame that snaps onto the front of the bulb encasing. The print is encased between a glass front and a plastic backing. Though the primary application is obviously children’s rooms, Night Light Designs has also found a healthy business-to-business market, composed of everyone from local businesses and real estate agents who use them for promotional pieces and house-warming gifts to the artists who contribute to Night Light Designs’ image library.

Night Light Designs hits the road this July for its first trade show, the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) Convention and Trade Show. “It’s a great way to display photography and art in any aspect, whether it’s black-and-white or color,” says Hanbury.