Creating a Final Text Blink

Today Nanci suggested that we have some kind of text at the end of the music video, as we are having it fade to black. I suggested that we put a blinking neon sign reading "Beatophone". Because we wouldn't be able to actually get that from anywhere, I decided to go ahead and create one by myself, in Photoshop.

To begin with, I created the text in all caps using the font Beon Medium from 1001 fonts. The colour I used is #89c8f4. I then right-clicked on the layer and rasterized the type, which means that I transformed it from a vector-based file to a bitmap file. Then, using the Marquee Tool I went ahead and selected the horizontal lines from the font and seperated them from the vertical lines, putting them on a different layer. This is because what I did next was different for the horizontals and verticals. I set both fill values to 0, which removed the colour from the text so the effect would spark up more.

I then duplicated the horizontal and verticals twice, as I would create similar effects, however strengthen them on each layer to make the lines look 3D.

To start off, I went to the first horizontal layer and used the Bevel & Emboss with the following settings:

Size: 10

Unchecked the Use Global Light box

Angle: 0

Altitude: 70

Checked the Anti-aliased box

Highlight Mode: Linear Light

Shadow Mode - Opacity: 0%

This allowed me to create the blue base of the letters, on which I would then build up a glow and shine. I then also created an Inner Shadow to create the blue hue. The settings I used are:

Blend Mode: Screen

Colour: #7aaef4

Angle: 30

Distance: 0

I also added an Inner Glow with the following settings:

Opacity: 85%

Colour: #7aaef4

Source: Center

Size: 18

And a Drop Shadow with these settings:

Distance: 13

Size: 7

I then did similar things for the vertical lines, except for the fact that the following Bevel and Emboss settings changed to:

Angle: 90

Altitude: 74

I changed the settings of Inner Glow:

Size: 15

I then created a layer underneath the text and called it Background Light, changed it's blend mode to Linear Light and made the colour #264dda. I then went along with the brush tool and picked a soft and very large tip. Then I clicked behind the text to create a fuzzy, and light giving look.

After that, I did one last thing to make the effect complete, which was adding cables combining the seperate letters. I did this with the Pen tool and created a path. After I had gotten the design I wanted, I went ahead and picked the brush tool, changed the settings to:
Brush Size: 2 px
Spacing: 1%
Hardness: 100%

I changed the colour to #3c30ba, picked the Direct Selection Tool, right-clicked the path and chose Stroke Path. This then coloured the path and created the cool wire effect.

I then went ahead and blacked out the entire text to make the neon sign to appear off, and then made it so that half the sign was turned on. This way, when piecing together, I was able to create a blinking effect.

In Version 1 I repeated the on-to-off pattern, and kept it on for a little while, however I felt that this didn't look too good. In Version 2 I switched the pattern to:
On
Half-Off
On
Off
On
Half-Off
Off
On
On
On
On
Off
On

This is a much more unpredictable pattern and looks much cooler when flickering, as flickering in itself is quite unpredictable in the first place. This clip will hopefully be placed at the end of the music video, after it fades to black.

Version 1

Version 2