Hand-crafted, unique LED neon signs, which can decorate not only restaurants and festivals, but the walls of our homes, too. We asked Tamara Ruttner, the founder of The Neon Soda, about her brand and its story.
Today, the partly industrial, partly mid-century style is becoming a widely favored trend in interior design, and, as a result, neon signs are also enjoying more and more popularity. Tamara created her brand to respond to this demand and the niche market resulting from the same. She finished her studies at the Department of Commerce and Marketing at the Budapest Business School. After graduation, she was hired by an agency and started working in the field of marketing, then she worked as an event planner for several years. That’s when she discovered that there are only a very few good event decoration companies on the market, and so she launched a decor workshop under the name Plip Design, in the life of which she didn’t really participate at the time. In 2018, following the birth of her daughter, she started thinking about her own business: that’s when the idea of building a separate brand for neon signs within her workshop came to her. This is how the story of The Neon Soda started.
The Neon Soda is, as a matter of fact, engaged in the manufacturing of LED neon signboards. Tamara encountered the technology during her travels abroad. The goal of the brand is to add color to the Hungarian market with a product accessible to many, which is innovative from several aspects. “The LED-neon is the modern alternative to the traditional neon: it is a safer, more user-friendly, cost-effective and environment-friendly solution. It is not fragile, does not overheat and so it is easy to manage also at events and during transportation, but it is also a popular choice to decorate kids’ rooms with,” Tamara explained.
Currently there are three people working in The Neon Soda’s workshop, while Tamara, as the “face of the company”, keeps in contact with customers and is in charge of communication tasks. The brand’s neon signs can be found at many places, including restaurants, beauty salons and stores, but they have also created neon signs for several events. Moreover, the works of The Neon Soda are now popping up in homes, too.
The majority of their clients are brands and catering units, but the unique neon signs are more and more in demand for home use as well. To make ordering simpler and easier, those interested can also find a neon designer on the brand’s website, allowing them to set various parameters: in addition to the text, the font type and the size, they can also select whether they want their neon sign to be waterproof or not.
According to Tamara, every order is inspiring. “I like to work with big brands, we have already created custom neon signs for SmartWater, Bacardi, Intimissimi, Nespresso and Asus, just to mention a few, but to me, every new inquiry is a dream project! I like to brainstorm with the clients, get to know them and think about ideas together. It’s a fantastic experience to be there at the opening of a restaurant or a store, or at a wedding where the newlyweds are lit by a neon sign created by us,” Tamara told us.
One of the brand’s most important milestones was their very first project: “Bacardi ordered four neon signs for their stand at Balaton Sound festival, which was quite a big project, but we worked it out. From then on, we slowly started to receive more and more inquiries,” she commented.
In addition to custom orders, we can also choose from Neon Soda’s in-stock repertoire, on which they plan to place more emphasis in the near future. Tamara’s future goals also include getting the custom neon signs to as many homes as possible.
Sugar, regime change, Eastern Europe | Ilona Németh’s book is out now
The coolest ice cream parlors in Eastern Europe | TOP 5
