The original architectural styling of the mall was very loud and playful. SEGD, the main design corporation, writes about the Concord Mills project on their website saying, “Concord Mills is a 1.4-million-square-foot retail and entertainment center by the Mills Corporation. The design concept is based on regional imagery, celebrating North Carolina’s crafts, festivals, nature, music, sports and traditions” (SEGD). The most standout area was the food court that boasted a carnival theme. Giant signs of cartoon characters like lizards in cowboy hats, a pig, and a watermelon in a baseball cap were hung all over the ceiling. When designing the mall it was split into ‘7 different Charlotte neighborhoods’, each with a specific theme to represent Charlotte as a whole culturally. Some of the themed ‘neighborhoods’ included a Nascar racing court, an urban stage entertainment court, and a basketball court (Flichpaugh). The food court was carnival themed to represent the many local Charlotte fairs and festivals that take place. These characters have a hand drawn appearance, with sketch mark strokes and a bright color pallet. The signs were built with a 3D aspect so that the characters stood out, instead of a 2D flat appearance. This means that designers had to design multiple sides of the character to be built into 3D signs. Lockwood Sign Group was in charge of hanging and creating all the physical signs in the building.
Fri, Jan 10, 2025
I'll never understand why Concord hand to go through the blandification it did and removed these wonderful pieces of art, it's really depressing in there now with a white ceiling. When we take the kids I always show them pictures of how cool it used to look and how much more fun it was then it is now. They don't even want to eat in the food court after seeing what it used to look like…frankly I don't blame them.