It began back in the 1930s, when Bob and Joe Switzer - two sons of a California pharmacist - started to experiment with ways to produce colors far brighter than normal and that had the unique effect of " glowing " under ultraviolet or black light.
Initially, these new colors and effects found their way into magic shows, stage shows, and movie promotion posters. But by 1940, the brothers were busy working on a totally new batch of colors - ones that glowed brightly in daylight too!
World War II provided lots of uses for the new colors. Fluorescent fabric panels based on technology developed by DayGlo were used to send signals from the ground that could be seen by an airplane thousands of feet in the air.
Buoys painted with fluorescent paints from DayGlo marked areas in the water that had been cleared of floating explosives and mines.
Aircraft carrier crews clad in fluorescent suits lit by ultraviolet lamps guided places to nighttime landings.
As the chemistry and manufacturing process improved, the areas of application expanded. Advertising, safety and promotional firms began to recognize the uniqueness of these bright colors and specified their use.
Trademarked as DayGlo in reference to their daylight fluorescent properties, the name DayGlo caught on and, in the late 1960s, the company formally changed its name from Switzer Bros., to DayGlo Color Corp.
Today, DayGlo serves the world's color marketplace with quality, innovative fluorescent pigments, toners, bases, inks and dyes, color dispersions and specialty effects pigments.