The holidays are always a special season for The Theme Factory of Philadelphia. Of course we have your traditional props like snowmen and reindeer, santa thrones and dreidels, but it takes a special creativity to decorate an African American / Ethnic Holiday Mall. It had to be one part Philly, one part Caribbean, one part Egyptian, and two parts inviting. By request of the African American Chamber of Commerce, we were contacted by Kia Steave-Dickerson from Trading Spaces. Having worked with The Theme Factory a few times in the past, she was fully aware of our design capabilities. The concept was straight forward, three entrances, three motifs.

First we designed the Caribbean entrance. We knew that the clients loved our pointing finger, so we changed it from the standard patriotic colors to a nicer "KIA-brown" color. Then we slapped some vinyl signage on it, draped some raffia around it and covered it in afro-centric fabric. Next we designed a tropical themed truss to hold it. Draped in more fabric and surrounded with palm trees, this truss was anchored into the ground for stability. Add one christmas decorated palm tree and some colorful steel drums and you have a Caribbean Holiday Entrance.

The main entrance, 15th and JFK, was to be the Philadelphia entrance. We thought Liberty Bell was the best single Philadelphia prop, especially framed by our beautiful brick entranceway. Only we had to make a small modification. The normal overhead sign was way to small to make any impact outdoors. So we combined our stadium archway into the design of the brick entrance so we would have a larger surface to add signage to. Then we topped it off with some colorful international flags, a giant gift box, and some lighting.

Lastly, we had the Egyptian area. The aesthetic design was the easy part here, the difficulty lay in the structure. All of these props had to be outdoors for a full month. This made us again the obvious choice for decor because most of our work is done in fiberglass, not mache. But they still had to resist the elements. Wind being the most aggressive. So we had to design rigging for many of the props we left in the park including these tall slender egyptian arches with sphinx.

Overall the look was clean, everything was built to last, and the client was very content. Hopefully our entrances made an impact on the ability for the merchants to bring in customers. Another job completed by . . . . . The Theme Factory of Philadelphia.