(smooth mellow music) - [Dara] If you walk into Neonworks when Deb Slatkin is making a neon sign, this is how you'll find her, with a piece of glass in her hands and in her mouth.

- You can see it's starting to bend, starting to heat up, and then I just puff a little bit of air.

- [Dara] It's a process that requires her full attention as she takes the glass tube from the flame to the table to blow air to it, and shape it using a wooden block.

Then, it's back to the fire.

- You can see it's starting to get soft, heat it up, and the last thing I'll do is heat the outside of the glass and then blow a little bit of air into that tube.

- [Dara] It's something Slatkin does over and over again until she creates the perfect shape.

Next, it's time for her to connect it to the manifold, which is a vacuuming system that removes all impurities.

- [Deb] Whatever that's in there, I just want to make sure that there are no leaks in the tube.

- [Dara] She then fills the tube with a mixture of two gases, Neon and Argon.

Even though the naked eye can't see them at first, just wait until it's connected to a transformer.

- And that's in neon too.

- [Dara] This much attention to detail with every job Slatkin does, - [Deb] It's very tactile.

- [Dara] Is what's kept the lights on at her shop since 1994.

- I think you need patience, right?

You need some coordination.

But over time, things get easier.

- [Dara] Although the New Yorker graduated from Pratt University in industrial design, (tool whirring) after spending time in shops around glass benders, she decided to pursue it.

- I left a very nice job in New York (chuckles) for a very nice marketing and design firm with every perk that a kid out of college could have wanted.

It was the eighties, and I left, and I went to Tennessee and I learned how to bend glass.

- [Dara] Six years later, Slatkin move to the Queen City, open Neonworks, and ever since has been striving to not only satisfy her customers, but make lasting connections with them.

(smooth uptempo music) - I did some searching and came across Deb.

I emailed her some sketches and ideas, and she came up with a design.

And we love the sign, it's in the front window.

- [Dara] Douglas Armstrong, owner of Midwood Guitar Studio, says the neon sign Slatkin made him has been shining bright for seven years.

- The music note that's in the center of our logo.

Deb kind of came up with that.

She had her creative part, and then we had kind of a starting point of our logo, and she kind of meshed it to make it work in that sign.

- [Dara] Plaza Midwood isn't the only place you'll find Slatkin's work.

She's done signs for Phat Burrito in South End, Pinky's Westside Grill, and a particular place in uptown that's pretty hard to miss.

- That Ratcliffe's sign was done the early 2000s, and originally it was on the building.

I like the Ratcliffe's sign, and I say that because it's probably our iconic sign that everybody knows.

- [Dara] While neon signs may catch your eye quicker, there are other signs all throughout Charlotte that we pass by every day, not giving them much thought.

- [Glen] South End rebranded.

So if you see all the stop signs and the street signs, they have their little logo on top.

So we actually designed and fabricated, so it was like 180 signs.

- [Dara] Glen Nocik is the owner of ACSM incorporated - And now we're gonna go into the fabrication shop here.

- [Dara] Located in the same building, just a few feet away from Neonworks.

They also create signage for apartment complexes, parks, and different cities.

- It's an opportunity to just do more than just create a message.

You can be really creative at it and just make something that people will remember, aside from what it says.

- [Dara] In order to make memorable products, it takes all hands on deck from their hardworking 10-person team.

The first step in the process is designing.

- We'll begin with pencil sketches.

We might begin mocking things up really quickly in the computer design-wise.

From there, we go to this step.

We build everything in our 3D modeling program in house.

And then from there, we can pull out shop drawings from that model.

We'll do renderings for the client to look at so they know exactly what they're gonna get when this project is built.

- [Dara] If the customer has a small interior signage request, it's made here.

- Sometimes they just need elevator signs, signs point to the restroom.

It's really simple stuff that you might see passing by an apartment building.

So here is a really good example of that, something that we designed here.

And here you can see some raised text, some ADA braille.

- [Dara] If they have a large outdoor signage request, it's made here.

- Over here, we have our spray booth.

He's getting ready to start spraying some sign panels.

Once we're done spraying, we come over here and we start our assembly process.

- [Dara] Although Nocik and Slatkin create masterpieces with their separate companies, when they collaborate, it's spectacular.

- The sign that we did for Earl's Landing, that was really nice, and they did this beautiful background.

It was a wooden background routed out, and I put neon on top of it.

They're great to work with.

- [Dara] Slatkin says she's proud to know that in their industry there's more collaboration than competition.

She keeps the same mindset when it comes to teaching her craft.

- Somewhere along the line, (chuckles) you will need help, right?

And you'll be glad that another sign person will help you.

Until the very end- - So whether she's sharing her wisdom with rising glass benders, or someone with no experience like myself, alright, we're going into the fire.

Slatkin says it's all worth it as long as she can share a little bit of her passion for the bright lights with others.

For "Carolina Impact," I'm Dara Khaalid.