A Columbus, OH Mall Gets in Gear

The Easton Town Center has been one of Columbus, OH’s top retail destinations for years, but shopping-center executives know that maintaining such popularity requires frequent reinvention and rebranding.
In 2015, commercial developer Steiner + Assoc. opened the property’s Gateway expansion, and its architecture emphasized an industrial aesthetic. With this in mind, Town Center officials hired Cincinnati-based Kolar Design to develop a prominent environmental graphic. And, as is often the case, old- and new-school production methods were jointly incorporated to create an impactful sign.
Using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop software, firm principal Kelly Kolar and her team developed a graphic that paid tribute to the numerous textile-manufacturing facilities that populated the area during the early 20th Century. Columbus-based Jarvis Art Studio scaled and painted 50-ft.-long wall expanses with Art Deco designs that provide stylized depictions of textile workers and their creations.
To complement the colorful murals with an industrial motif, Columbus Sign Co. fabricated 3-D gears of various shapes and sizes that evoke that intense feel of a factory floor. SignCom (Columbus) fabricated the gears using HDU, which it produced on a MultiCam CNC router, with complementing layers of routed, impact-modified acrylic. To add warmth and depth to the signs, Columbus Sign installed LED backlighting. SignCom also handled the project’s installation.