Changelog

The AI sign designer now works through the Sign Customiser API and through AI agents. Send a PNG, JPEG or WebP image of 5 MB (5,242,880 bytes) or less. The AI sign designer makes a sign design and gives you the production files. A delivered design uses one credit. A design that fails uses no credit.

What’s Changed

• Make a design with the API. Send an image and start a design job. Read the job until the design is ready. The API makes neon, channel letter and metal cut-out designs.
• Get production files. Each design has an SVG file, an EPS file and an Illustrator-compatible PDF file. To get only the SVG file, ask for SVG only.
• Share files with no login. Each ready file has a download link. The link needs no API key and no login. You can give it to a manufacturer.
• Pay for delivered designs only. The AI sign designer holds one credit when a design starts. It uses the credit when the design is delivered. It releases the credit when the design fails.
• Send a request again with no second charge. If you send the same request again with the same Idempotency-Key, you get the same job. You use no second credit.
• Retry a failed conversion for free. If an EPS or PDF conversion fails, you can start it again. Each design has 3 free retries.
• Use an AI agent. Seven new MCP tools let an agent check the credits of the Store, send your image, start a design and get the files. Claude Code, OpenAI Codex and ChatGPT can use them.
• Confirm the credit first. Before an agent starts a design, it must confirm that the design uses one credit.

PNG files with a non-standard colour profile

Before this fix, the API and the MCP server could reject a valid PNG file that has a non-standard colour profile. Older Adobe exports often have this profile. The API and the MCP server now accept these files. They still reject a damaged file.

Get started

1. Create an API key in Tools & Settings > API Tokens. Select the ai_sign_designs:read and ai_sign_designs:write scopes. A key that you made before with a fixed list of scopes does not have these scopes.
2. Follow the AI sign designer guide.
3. To use an AI agent, follow the connection guide. Approve View AI sign designs and Use the AI sign designer. If you connected the agent before, connect it again.

The sign preview in Sign Customiser has a new Real size view. The view shows the customer’s sign next to a person who is 170 cm (5 ft 7 in) tall. The sign and the person have the same scale. Customers can see how big the sign is before they order it.

What’s Changed

• Design | Real size switchThe switch is at the top left of the preview. The view opens only when a customer selects “Real size”. When the customer selects “Design”, the preview shows the design and the background again, with the sign in the centre.
• One scaleThe Real size view uses the final width and height of the sign. This is the same size that the measurements on the preview show. The sign is on a wall next to the person, with a floor line and a height rail.
• All sign shapesSquare, wide, tall and small signs fit in the preview on desktop and on phones. If the preview is too small, the “Real size” option shows a message.
• Text signs and AI designsThe Real size view works for text signs and for designs from the AI sign designer.
• Tools hiddenIn the Real size view, the preview does not show the tool buttons, “Share my design”, “Upload Background” or the backgrounds. The sidebar stays available. When the customer changes the size, the view shows the change.
• Your measurement settingsThe size label of the sign follows your “Show/hide Measurements” setting. The height of the person and the size of the sign use your “Measurement Unit” setting.
• On for new customisersNew customisers show the switch, except lightbox customisers. Customisers that you already have do not show it until you select the option. A duplicate customiser keeps the setting of the original customiser.
• Where to find the optionOpen your customiser. Go to “Features → Scene Editor - Background Images”. In the “Visualiser Scaling” section, select “Show Real size view”. Click “Save”. You can use this option on every plan and with “Drag, Scale, Rotate”.
• Your own wordsYou can change and translate the switch labels, the caption and the messages. They are in the “Visualiser” section of each language, in “Settings → Languages” of your customiser.
• Not for lightbox signsThe Real size view is not available for lightbox signs.
• Live preview onlyProduct images, the cart and shared design links show only the sign. They do not show the person.

For the full steps, read the Real size view article.

The customiser sidebar has a new layout for signs with more than one colour choice for their parts. Before, each choice was a small icon tile in a row. The name showed only in a tooltip and above the swatches of the selected choice.

Now each colour choice has its own card. Most cards are for one part of the sign, such as the tube or the face. On a lightbox, the Face and Border parts can share one card when they have the same colour options. The card shows the name, an icon and an arrow. On neon and letter signs, the icon shows the current colour.

Only one card is open at a time. The open card contains the colour swatches for that choice. Customisers with only one colour choice for their parts keep the same colour section layout. Other colour sections, such as the backboard colour, also keep the same layout.

Neon signs have new icons for the tube colour and UV print parts. The tube icon is a neon tube on a backboard outline. The UV print icon is the same backboard shape, filled with colour. Both icons change to the selected colour, including multi-colour options.

Icons in white and other very light colours have a thin grey outline. This outline keeps the icon visible on a white background. The Face, Side, Trim and Halo icons for letter signs also have this outline.

When a part uses more than one colour, the card shows a badge with the number of colours.

For designs from the AI sign designer, the Restore original colours swatch now shows a palette with a reset arrow. Its three paint spots show colours from the original design. When a part uses its original colours, the swatch is selected and the colour name is “Original Colours”. This applies to the tube, UV print, face, trim and halo parts.

The cards are available on neon, letter and lightbox signs with more than one colour choice for their parts. In our demo customisers, acrylic channel letters have Face Colour, Side Colour, Trim Colour and Halo Light cards. Metal signs have Face / Front Lit and Back Lit cards. Lightboxes have Face, Border and Internal Light cards.

Most cards use the title and description you set for that colour part. If you do not set a title, the card uses a default part name. A shared Face and Border card shows the Face description.

Above the cards, the sidebar shows a heading with a title and a description. We added default text for neon, letter and lightbox signs. For example, neon signs show “Choose your colours”, letter signs show “Choose your letter colours” and lightboxes show “Choose your lightbox colours”. When the customiser shows step numbers, the heading has one step number for all the cards. If you set a title or a description before this update, we did not change it.

To change the heading, open the colour page of a sign part, for example Tube Colors or UV Colors. Then edit the Colour heading title and Colour heading description fields. All colour parts of a customiser use the same heading. On letter signs, you can also edit the heading on the Letter Types page. On lightboxes, you can also edit it on the Lightbox Types page. If you delete the text in both fields, the heading does not show.

On phones, the cards use the same layout. On phones and tablets, we also removed extra space above the first sidebar section. This space showed when a section above it was empty.

What’s Changed

• One card for each colour choiceEach colour choice for a sign part has a card with a name and an icon. On neon and letter signs, the icon shows the current colour. On a lightbox, the Face and Border parts can share one card.
• One open card at a timeCustomers open a card to see its swatches. The other cards stay closed.
• Colour headingA heading with a title and a description shows above the cards. Neon, letter and lightbox signs have default text. You can change or delete this text on the colour page of each sign part.
• Your titles and descriptionsMost cards show the title and description that you set for each colour part.
• New neon iconsThe tube colour and UV print parts have new neon icons that change to the selected colour.
• Outline for light coloursNeon and letter sign icons in white and other very light colours have a thin grey outline.
• Colour count badgeA card shows the number of colours when its part uses more than one colour.
• Restore original colours swatchFor AI sign designer designs, the swatch shows colours from the original design. When a tube, UV print, face, trim or halo part uses its original colours, the swatch is selected and the name is “Original Colours”.
• Single colour choiceA customiser with only one colour choice for its parts keeps the same colour section layout.
• Phone and tablet spacingWe removed extra space above the first sidebar section when a section above it was empty.

When AI Sign Designer V2 draws a neon design as neon line work, the customiser now shows the line work as lit neon tubes. The tubes have the same glow as neon text.

Update, 1 October 2026:From 1 October 2026, AI Sign Designer V2 does not add a UV print to new neon designs. The images on this page show designs from before this change. They have a UV print under the tubes. Those designs keep their UV print. When the UV print shows, the order includes the UV print file. Your manual UV print options do not change.

What’s Changed

• Lit neon tubesThe tubes use the Glow Effect setting of your tube part, as neon text does. When the lights are off, the tubes show the jacket colour.
• Tubes aligned to the artworkWhen it gives a better fit, Sign Customiser moves the tube drawing to align it with the flat artwork.
• Uploaded logosShapes in uploaded neon logos no longer show an extra thin line on their edge. The trim outline does not change. Filled shapes now glow from their fill, as neon text does. When the tubes are white with a coloured glow, the glow is also smaller. Uploaded logos with Flow tube colours look the same as before.

Designs that have a UV print

Before 1 October 2026, AI Sign Designer V2 added a UV print to some new neon designs. For a UV print, the selected product type had an active UV part with at least one UV colour or a custom image. The flat colours of the design then showed as a UV print under the tubes. These designs keep their UV print:

• Follows the product typeIf the customer selects a product type without UV print, the customiser hides the UV print. If they select a product type with UV print, the UV print shows again.
• File with the orderWhen the design in the cart shows a UV print, Sign Customiser saves a UV print file with the product. The file has the UV colours of the final design and uses the same frame as the sign SVG.
• Order emailThe default neon order email has a UV print artwork: line with a link to the file. If your customiser uses its own order email template, add the uvPrintLink variable to it.
• Product pageIn the Design Files section of the product, the file shows as UV print artwork.
• Hidden order propertyThe order line item has a hidden _UV print artwork property with the link to the file.
• AI Design FilesA delivered design with a UV print has a Download UV print artwork button. This file has the colours from the AI, not the colours from the customer.
• Sign SVGIf your customiser makes an SVG image of the sign, that file keeps the UV print and the tubes in separate groups. The tubes show in their tube colours.

Sign Customiser keeps the built-in blue/grey background consistent for compatible sign customisers. Select it and enable “Use the selected background in the product image” to carry it into cart and order product images. Enter a positive real width to scale the visualiser and Review screen, then use the same option to scale the cart and order image. Without saved dimensions, the sign keeps its usual fit, while an enabled product-image option still uses the selected built-in colour.

What’s Changed

• Set the default background size. In the Scene Editor, enter a positive width under “Display default blue/gray background image”. You can also save a height, but the width drives proportional scaling. The fields show when preview or Review images and the default background are enabled. “Scale visualisation with size” must be on, and Drag, Scale and Rotate must be off. They start blank, with 300 cm as a recommended placeholder.
• Scale every preview consistently. With “Scale visualisation with size” on and a positive default background width, the visualiser and Review screen scale the sign against the built-in background. Enable “Use the selected background in the product image” for compatible customisers to scale cart and order product images too. Leave the fields blank to keep the usual fit.
• Keep product images on the chosen backdrop. With “Use the selected background in the product image” enabled, supported non-Lightbox Konva customisers show the selected built-in background as a flat colour in product images. This includes Neon, Channel, cut-out, stencil and wooden sign types. This replaces the previous fallback image, including the demonstration photo when no Main Product Image is configured.
• Keep Material Length sizes in order. Advanced Letter (Material Length) customisers with an unset size limit no longer show Medium or Large smaller than Small on backgrounds without dimensions. The Small preview stays the same.

Sign Customiser now shows each rectangular sign board in the shape your customer selected. A square board stays square, while portrait and landscape formats look visibly different before the customer orders.

What’s Changed

• True-to-size previews. Square, portrait and landscape boards keep the width-to-height ratio the customer selects.
• Accurate boxes and stands. Rectangular boxes and stands use the same proportions as the chosen sign size.
• Matching product images. Newly generated product images keep the board shape customers saw while designing their sign.
• Clearer measurements. Width and height guides line up with the board itself, making each format easier to compare.
• No setup needed. Eligible customisers update automatically, and pricing stays the same.

Sign Customiser now gives each newly generated Shopify product a product type that matches its sign category. This makes it easier to build collections, shipping rules and other Shopify automations for different kinds of signs.

What’s Changed

• Product types now match the signNew acrylic, metal, stencil, wooden, aluminium, braille, wood-frame and lightbox products receive their own clear product type.
• Neon remains familiarNew neon products keep the existing Custom Neon product type, so established neon workflows continue to work.
• Existing products stay unchangedThe new product types apply when Sign Customiser creates a product. Products already in Shopify are not renamed.

Cut-to-shape and cut-to-letter backboards now look like the real thing in the customiser. When no backboard colour is selected, Sign Customiser previews the backing as clear acrylic with a crisp cut edge that follows your design — matching how a finished neon sign actually looks — instead of a flat grey panel.

What’s Changed

• Clear acrylic by defaultWith no backboard colour chosen, cut-to-shape and cut-to-letter backboards now render as clear acrylic rather than a solid grey shape.
• Visible cut edgeA clean cut line traces the outer edge of the design — the whole silhouette for cut-to-shape, and each letter for cut-to-letter — just like light catching the edge of real acrylic.
• A more accurate previewCustomers see a truer representation of their finished neon sign, helping them feel confident in their design before adding it to the cart.

Many neon shops offer just a single jacket option, so the extra jacket step in the customiser asked customers to make a choice they never really needed to make. Sign Customiser now hides the jacket step by default on new neon customisers, giving shoppers a shorter, more focused path to checkout — without changing how your signs are built.

Behind the scenes, your first jacket option is still applied automatically, so every sign keeps the correct tube colour and your orders carry exactly the same details as before. And if you do offer more than one jacket type, a single setting brings the step straight back.

What’s Changed

• Cleaner customiser by defaultNew neon customisers hide the jacket step, removing it from both the design sidebar and the order summary
• Correct tube colour kept automaticallyYour first jacket option is still applied in the background, so signs render correctly and orders are completely unaffected
• One setting to show or hideA new “Hide the jacket step from customers” option in your jacket settings lets you turn the step on or off whenever you like
• Ideal for single-jacket shopsPerfect if you only offer one jacket type and want to keep the buying experience as simple as possible

The AI Sign Designer has taken a significant step forward at converting customer-supplied logos into neon production artwork. When shoppers upload a brand logo and ask for a neon sign, the output now looks like a clean tube layout your shop could quote and build, with the original wordmark, colours, and proportions intact.

What’s Changed

• Brand typography is now preserved exactlyWordmarks are traced from the original glyphs, so the source font weight, letter spacing, terminals, and curved baselines come through instead of being replaced by a generic neon script
• Source colours map to tube coloursBrand reds, greens, blues, and other colours from the customer’s logo carry through to the neon tubes rather than collapsing to a single white tube
• Backboards and filled badges are stripped outSolid discs, shields, dark colour fields, and panel backgrounds behind a logo are removed automatically, leaving only the foreground tubes and lettering a sign shop would actually fabricate
• Flat production artwork instead of a glowing previewOutputs are now unlit, hard-edged, vector-style tube proofs with no halos, bloom, or photographic glow effects, so what you see is what you’d quote
• Taglines and small lettering surviveThin, light, or widely spaced text is no longer fattened or regularised; small straplines like “The way to grow your business” remain readable and on the right baseline
• Cleaner separation of text and graphicsLetters stay solid filled, while icons, animals, and decorative shapes are rebuilt as sparse tube paths with negative space between them — matching how a real neon sign is built
• More consistent results from the same uploadNeon prompts now run with tighter generation settings, so re-running the same logo produces noticeably less variation between attempts