Ikea malls roll out Portland signage across Europe

Inter Ikea Centre Group is set to roll out wayfinding and signage by Portland Design across its 33 European mall sites.

The Ikea-owned mall builder and operator installs anchor Ikea outlets in all of its developments in Austria, Germany, Poland, France, Spain, Portugal, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The shopping mall identity features a red and orange ‘smiling shopping bag’ motif that Portland refers to the wayfinding scheme through the use of the colour red.

IICG appointed Portland in December last year, following a competitive credentials pitch. It briefed the consultancy to create a kit of parts and produce a set of brand guidelines.

Portland says it is discussing how the wayfinding should interact with Ikea’s own signage in shared areas such as car parks, and is recommending the creation of a second set of guidelines to clarify this.

The kit of parts includes identifying signs, arrow signs and directories.

Portland creative head of environmental graphics Lara Farnham says, ‘The wayfinding needed to be reduced, having grown out of knee-jerk reactions to different spaces. We are trying to align it with the group’s stated aim of creating “a better everyday life for many people” and are going for a simple, consistent, confident, less-is-more look for the signs.’

The work is currently being applied to a mall in Matosinhos, Portugal, which is due for completion in October. The designs will subsequently be rolled out across the company’s portfolio of shopping malls.