(Excerpt from CHS Magazine 2015)

Tommy Brooks may be one the Lowcountry’s most prolific designers you’ve never heard of. As the co-owner and designer for Brooks Signs, he and his team have spent the last 35 years adding familiar landmarks to the area’s scenery. Their work welcomes you to I’ON, Jack’s Cosmic Dogs, Copper Penny, Mount Pleasant, City of Charleston parks, and loads of other businesses, neighborhoods, and historical sites.

Tommy, an Art Institute of Atlanta grad, got his start in the 1970s, spending several years working for a local sign company before teaming up with his brother, Wally, who was running the nightclub Big Wally’s Carriage House on Market Street—to launch their own business. Back then, hand-lettering ruled the market, and Tommy ran the design end, while Wally managed manufacturing. “It’s kind of sad that hand-lettering is nearly a lost art, but new technologies and machinery have allowed us to come up with even more crazy-creative ways to build signs,” Tommy says. “And sitting and painting every single sign was pretty nerve-racking!”

Today, working out of a Huger Street warehouse, the brothers and their staff of nine have created everything from metal historical markers to window graphics (such as the stunning scales that covered the glass at Candlefish throughout its interior construction in 2014) to façade signs announcing businesses all over town. “I really love doing the handmade, one-of-a-kind items. It’s fun to figure out ‘how would you make this and what would you do to enhance it?’” says Tommy.

Over the years, they’ve made a point of giving back by working closely with religious organizations and nonprofits like Mepkin Abbey, One80 Place, and the Center for Birds of Prey. “We grew up being taught that there are a lot of people out there less fortunate than we are,” Tommy says. “It seems like the right thing to do.”