If you live in Philadelphia’s Brewerytown neighborhood, Steve Powers wants to give you a sign. Not the metaphorical, spiritual, omen kind of sign, but a literal sign — preferably of the flashy, retro variety.

It’s the latest project from the graffiti artist-turned-community organizer from West Philadelphia’s Overbrook neighborhood. Powers is known in his hometown alternatively by his graffiti name, “ESPO,” or from his “legitimate” work as the lead artist on the Philadelphia Mural Arts’ Love Letters series. His new project, called Icy Signs, is directly related in style and philosophy to this project, which splashed mock advertisements, laden with inspirational messages, along the sides of buildings adjacent to the Market Street Elevated Line in West Philadelphia.

Icy Signs will go a step further, manufacturing actual storefront signage for businesses along struggling commercial strips in Philadelphia. Powers, 44, recently secured a rent-free storefront on West Girard Avenue through friends that will function as a production center.

He sees the new project as a way of drawing attention to small businesses in Philly’s lower-income neighborhoods. “You’ve got economic development agencies working in all these neighborhoods to help businesses,” he said. “What’s the one thing they’re all focusing on? Signage.”

Powers sat down with me at a soul food restaurant next door to his new storefront, which is still being prepped for it’s role as a sign factory. Sporting an Eraserhead haircut and a Where’s Waldo-esque cardigan, he projects an air of goofy aloofness that seems slightly out of place in a city that still partially defines itself through how much it is not Williamsburg. But his words, soaked in a quiet, thick Philly accent, are precise and belie an understanding of the deep-seated poverty and social maladies that afflict his home city.

Icy Signs is, in various ways, a charitable, sentimental and selfish reaction to those problems, all at the same time. In short, it is personal.

“Part of the project is about restoring places like Market Street to their former glory,” said Powers, who was influenced by the gaudy and already outdated 1950s advertising milieu he encountered on that street as a teen, a style he honed in New York City, his adopted home.

“I think my original design aesthetic came from Coney Island. A lot of the signs are the loudest possible colors and the brightest possible combinations and most readable, from a long distance, fonts,” he said.

Powers described Icy Signs as a “guild” of artists with a wide variety of aesthetic styles and talents, united by a common goal of improving cities by improving the built environment. The group has been active with projects in Brooklyn, most notably stylizing a massive, ugly parking garage off of Fulton Mall.

Powers had been working with his collective in another, much larger, donated facility in Brooklyn. Icy Signs will now split into three smaller facilities, a studio and a separate retail store in New York, and the Girard Avenue production space. Sales of artwork and signs at the retail location will fund pro bono efforts in Philly.

Interior of the still-under-construction production area. Credit: Ryan Briggs

The group has already picked up its first customer. “We’re doing a sign now for Big Jim Tucker’s Lounge in West Philly,” Powers said. “He’s kind of the ideal client. He’s got the vertical frame of an old marquee sign that sticks out from his building, but it’s been an empty frame for who knows how long. Putting a sign in would probably cost him $2000 dollars. We’re doing it for free.”

Big Jim’s sign blasts bright colors and features a jaunty top hat and cane, examples of some of the “classy” old-school iconography Powers’ group has drawn from. Powers says he likes to tailor the sign projects to the individual neighborhoods they will occupy, using the existing vernacular on faded advertisements and burnt-out marquees to create something that feels “classic.”

“It’s not about reinventing the wheel. The wheel is already there, it’s just about putting rims on it,” he said, laughing.

In addition to (hopefully) drawing in new customers and generally improving the aesthetic environment of urban shopping strips, Powers relishes the creative freedom and satisfaction he gets out of working with public art.

“Because we don’t charge any money we get the maximum level of creative control, because most people are excited to be getting a free sign,” he said.

“I have my own selfish attitude that comes out when I get enjoyment from walking past businesses that I put a sign on,” he continued. “It’s exactly the same feeling I got when I painted graffiti. But now I don’t have to feel guilty about it.”

Ryan Briggs is an investigative reporter based in Philadelphia. He has contributed to the Philadelphia Inquirer, WHYY, the Philadelphia City Paper, Philadelphia Magazine and Hidden City.

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