Neon lighting surely wasn’t what Tennyson had in mind when he wrote “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” Yet it seems an apt description of Lite Brite Neon, the Brooklyn-based studio invading the home-lighting market with a line of witty neon light fixtures.

Matthew Diller, the studio’s affable and unpretentious founder, has at 26 assumed a key role in the neon renaissance gripping the city. New York has always been keen on window-shopping and display, and some of our chicest hotspots such as Stella McCartney’s Meatpacking District store and the Lever House, owe their new window dressings to Lite Brite Studio.

Now, with a line of neon chandeliers and wall sconces, Mr. Diller and his staff have made their first foray into the consumer goods arena. The two items are sold at the Future Perfect in Williamsburg (115 N. 6th St., 718-599-6278) and Fashion/Plate in Nolita (264 Elizabeth St., 212-219-9212) for roughly $2,000 and $1,000, respectively. (They are also available, by special order, through Mr. Diller’s studio.) Two newly unveiled designs – a candelabra and a floor lamp ($3,000 and $4,000) – will be available in April.

With their subtle use of white and gold, the chandelier and candelabra have a ghostly sheen that wouldn’t look out of place in a postmodern production of “The Turn of the Screw.” The floor lamp and wall sconce, on the other hand, incorporate dandelion-yellow and royal-blue tubing to evoke the more urban, pop effect we traditionally associate with neon – a 1980s vibe.

The invention of Lite Brite Neon’s home-lighting line came about last fall, as the saying goes, through necessity. “I needed a chandelier for our office,” Mr. Diller explained. Sure enough, an all white version of the model hangs in his high-ceilinged work space. The design itself is something of an inside joke. “It’s a chandelier made for holding light bulbs, not candles,” which references “the original design of electric chandeliers,” Mr. Diller said. In other words, just as fancy incandescent bulbs mimic the thing they replace – the peaked shape of the candle – so this neon chandelier evokes the rounded shape of what it hopes to usurp: the generic GE “soft white” light bulb.

Bringing neon illumination into the home may have a result beyond mere aesthetics. Neon mimics the mood-elevating effects of natural light much more effectively than incandescent or fluorescent light (capturing 98% of the spectrum, as opposed to 68%-75% for other light sources). In other words, those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder can now battle the winter blues in style.

Lite Brite Studio will continue to produce custom-made pieces – say, your name in neon – for a price ranging from $400 to $50,000, depending on the project. Most impressive about Mr. Diller’s portfolio is how little of it is traditional (which, in the case of neon, can mean tacky). Mr. Diller’s art school background and high-end design com missions have kept him from complacency. “We’ve never had to do a ‘Salon’ or ‘Open’ sign,” he said, laughing.

Mr. Diller learned the trade of neon lighting in high school, from Craig Kraft, a Washington, D.C.-based light artist who teaches at the Smithsonian Institution arts program. (“My sister’s art history teacher took a class from him,” said Mr. Diller, recalling the roundabout way he landed in the field.) Mr. Diller enrolled in the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, but left after two years; he was already managing a robust commercial business, which didn’t sit well with the art school.

There were also “some safety and liability issues” with the neon workshop he had jimmied into his small studio at the school. In 1999, Mr. Diller left New York for Brooklyn, and Lite Brite Neon was born. A neighbor in Williamsburg recommended Mr. Diller work on a Diane von Furstenberg runway show, which led to a job doing lights for Bergdorf Goodman’s windows.

Since then, clients such as Gap, Burberry, Calvin Klein, and repeat customer Ms. McCartney have used Lite Brite Neon’s services. Mr. Diller has also collaborated with such well-known artists as Keith Sonnier, Joseph Kosuth, and Bruce Nauman.

What’s behind the current rage for everything neon? “It’s partly an ironic approach,” admitted Mr. Diller. (No stranger to irony, he keeps a version of the dreaded ‘Salon’ sign in his studio’s bathroom.) “My clients are engaging the fact that neon has an existing role in an urban vocabulary.” Translation: the stores are keen to evoke the heyday of New York glam – which for neon was the 1920s and 1930s. (The studio also holds an archive of classic neon signs, including a martini glass and “Diner” sign that he rents out to film sets and party promoters.)

Technically, the studio’s march into the retail market does not constitute “mass production,” because neon must still be crafted by hand. “The process of making neon hasn’t changed much since Tesla invented it,” Mr. Diller said. (Nikola Tesla, a photograph of whom adorns both Mr. Diller’s studio and Web site, invented neon in 1893. “He’s often overlooked,” Mr. Diller added.)

The making of neon can be a painstaking process, though Mr. Diller’s precision and speed make it look exciting. Tubes (which are mass-produced) are heated up with a blowtorch until flexible, then curved by hand into the desired shape. Using special vacuum equipment, Mr. Diller fills the design with various gases – helium, argon, mercury, and, of course, neon – to create the desired color, then heats the entire fixture to 450 degrees Fahrenheit until the electrical current pushes all the impurities out of the tubings. The creation is then set aside to “age.” Several hours later, the color is set, and the fixture is complete. (For a full explanation of the process and the colors possible, visit www.litebriteneon.com.)

As the gases are inert, the environment isn’t inherently dangerous, Mr. Diller said. (His use of equipment “stolen from the trash at MIT” when he was an art student in Boston doesn’t, however, inspire faith.) It’s actually the flame that you have to be careful of. Jim Berkovich, a freelance “bender” – as the makers of neon are called for their shaping of the tubes – in Mr. Diller’s studio recently burned his hand for the first time in his 13 years of working with neon. “So it really can happen anytime,” Mr. Diller said. (While demonstrating the process for me, Mr. Diller wore neither gloves nor goggles. “Glass is a very good insulator,” he said.)

For those both adventurous and curious, Mr. Diller teaches an experimental neon-making workshop on Tuesday nights at Urban Glass in downtown Brooklyn (718-625-3685, www.urbanglass.org). His excitement about his teaching is infectious: “It’s really cool, nontraditional stuff: blowing your own tubes, hand-shaping vessels, using a microwave to make stuff, making neon with candy-can tubing. It’s not really for getting ‘into the trade,’ it’s just fun to take what I do here into a completely different context.” And safety goggles are required.

Lite Brite Neon, 718-855-8062, www.litebriteneon.com.