The Mills Are Alive…with Graphics

Calling a property developed by The Mills Corp. a "shopping mall" sells the place short — no pun intended. Each center is a heavily themed retail and entertainment experience and, typically, when one is built, it quickly becomes a premiere tourist destination. Concord Mills (Concord, NC) is no exception.

Kiku Obata & Co. (St. Louis) served as the design/architecture/graphics firm for the project, which also involved numerous architecture, landscape and lighting consultants. Lockwood Sign Group (Charlotte, NC) fabricated and installed the mall's exterior and interior sign-age, using icons and symbols celebrating regional history, traditions, crafts, festivals, architecture, natural beauty and pastimes.

Because Concord Mills boasts an interior walkway with a 1-mile circumference, wayfinding is critical. To help consumers navigate, large, unique entry sculptures are positioned at each entry point, as are colorful directionals; their design references the mall's logo, which is based on a Carolina lily quilt pattern. Each mall entry and its corresponding parking lot ID are identified by an entry-point number and a distinct pair of colors. To further reinforce the customer's memory, those same colors are repeated on the mall entrance panels and the exposed ceiling joists within the mall's seven "neighborhoods."

These neighborhoods are themed areas of the mall. For example, the NASCAR Racing Court comprises black-and-white checkered flags, vehicle murals, a terrazzo floor depicting racing lanes and special seating units with wheels. Decorating the Urban Stage Entertainment Court are a nightlife graffiti mural, lenticular screens and lighting that mimics day changing into night. In the Basketball Court, rims and netting stretch across the ceiling, life-size aluminum silhouettes of basketball players welcome shoppers, and a Gobo-light show of basketballs takes place every 30 minutes. Graphics likewise proliferate the Music Court, Fashion Court, Craft Court, Garden Court, Best Fest Food Court and second Entertainment Court.

According to Lockwood Sign Group General Manager Carl Zinder, Kiku Obata & Co. asked them to bid on the massive project. During Lockwood's four months of fabrication, the shop created 12-ft.-tall, three-piece "hanging wing" directional signs at entries one and six; freestanding directories at each entry; most signage hanging from the ceiling; Tri-Vision® signs; and surrounds housing televisions.

Zinder especially praised the directories' design and construction. To paint 30+ multicolored signs, Lockwood used three fulltime painters 12 hours a day. To ensure level striping on cone-, round- and oblong-shaped sign-age, the painters rigged a laser pen on a stand.

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"Every sign in the whole place was a unique experience to see being built," Zinder says. "We could use no visible fasteners or hanging devices."

Installation was accomplished in phases. Seventeen- and 18-hour days proved commonplace.

"I would go out and see what was ready on certain days and coordinate what signage was brought out in certain areas," Zinder says. "We had to work in conjunction with the floor installers, painters and ceiling workers, so we put things up as we could."

Installing large signage proved difficult, so Lockwood used multiple electric hoist and scissor lifts. Interestingly, Zinder and others used bicycles, golf carts and skateboards as they logged 25-30 miles a day traveling back and forth across the mall.

"It took every bit of sign knowledge I had for this project," Zinder says. "And I've been doing this work my whole life."

"It was great fun to design every surface in the space," design-firm owner Kiku Obata concludes. "We wanted to make an experience that changed as you walk through. It does give you a different feel in each of these areas, while promoting North Carolina to 18 million people throughout the year."

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