While neon signs traditionally use custom lettering, not fonts, tube-bent letters have inspired new typeface designs for over fifty years. And, vice versa, as desktop publishing began to replace lettering skills in the 1980s, typefaces became a common ingredient in sign-making of all kinds, including neon. This talk will present a brief survey of this cross-pollination, with examples that succeed and those that don’t, and some ideas for how neon and type can coexist harmoniously in an era when handmade signs are back in vogue.