If you have fitted out a unit in Dubai Mall, Mall of the Emirates or City Centre, you already know the sign is not a design decision. It is a landlord decision. Half the signs we are asked to remake were cut to a nice drawing that never went through mall management.
Retail · 2026-08-24 · 6 min read
Every mall in Dubai has a signage manual: letter height, sign depth, how far the face can sit off the bulkhead, light temperature, and whether the sign may be illuminated at all. Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates are strict. Some community malls are looser. If your drawing ignores the depth limit, it will come back. We would rather lose a week on a drawing than lose three weeks on a rejected install.
Letters that are too deep. Warm lighting when the mall spec says 4000K. Vinyl faces that will curl in the atrium air-conditioning. A logo that hangs below the approved zone. And the classic: a beautiful backlit box on a facade that only allows individual letters. Send us the landlord pages with the logo. We will tell you what will pass before we cut acrylic.
A mall kiosk has four sides, no bulkhead, and a landlord who cares about sightlines down the aisle. Acrylic here is the counter face, the menu or price panel, the product risers, and a low-profile logo that does not block the next kiosk. Overnight install is normal. We cut and finish in Al Quoz, then fit after trading hours so you are not building in front of shoppers.
Mall atriums are bright and vertical. Thin letters disappear. 8 to 10mm faces on built-up letters, or a halo-lit set if the manual allows it, is what still reads from the opposite balcony. Edge-lit panels work for menus and promotions inside the unit. The shopfront itself should stay as letters, not a glowing slab, unless the landlord has signed off a light box.
A compliant letter set for a mall shopfront is usually a few thousand dirhams, not tens of thousands. The expensive version is the one you cut twice: once for the brand, once for the mall. Installation access, scissor lifts, night hours, add more than the acrylic. Put those in the first quote. A cheap sign quote that ignores the lift is not a cheap sign.
Retail brand managers, shopfitters and visual merchandisers opening or refreshing a mall unit. Send the logo, the bulkhead width, and the mall's signage pages. If you do not have the pages, tell us which mall. We have seen most of them.
Do not cut a mall sign from a brand guideline alone. Cut it from the landlord manual, then the brand. 8 to 10mm letters, the right light temperature, and an overnight install. That is how a sign goes up once.
Questions about your own project? Talk to our Dubai workshop, we answer the same working day.
Yes. We fabricate the letters and panels in Al Quoz and install to the mall's access hours. We need the landlord signage pages before we cut, or the sign risks coming down.
Usually depth, lighting colour, or the logo sitting outside the approved zone. Vinyl faces and oversize light boxes are the other two. Send the rejection note. Most can be remade to the manual without changing the brand.
Drawings a few days, landlord approval is the unknown, production 5 to 10 working days after that. Book the night install when the drawing is submitted, not when the letters are already in the van.
Yes. Counters, risers and low logo panels are built off-site and fitted after hours. That is the normal pattern for Dubai mall kiosks.
Pick your products, add a note, and our team replies the same working day.