Choose Your Own Aventura

Opened in 1983, Aventura Mall in Aventura, FL, a suburb of Miami, is the largest in the state and the second largest in the U.S. behind King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania and a couple hundred thousand square feet ahead of Mall of America in Minnesota. At 2.7 million square feet (250,000 square meters), including a recent three-story expansion, the mall houses over 300 stores, a 24-screen movie theater, a food hall, stand-alone restaurants, and a 93-foot slide. Not only is it big but it’s also one of the highest money-making malls in America being near some of the most affluent neighborhoods in Florida and where shoppers spend an average of $338 per visit, way above the national average. With the completion of the expansion late last year, Aventura Mall introduced a new identity designed by New York, NY-based King & Partners.

With Aventura Mall’s upcoming three-level expansion, there was a need to rethink and refresh Aventura Mall to compete with other top-performing premium malls, without alienating existing customers. From there, we began building out a brand strategy that would resonate with new and existing audiences in all target markets.

King & Partners project page

The old logo was fairly bad, with horrible kerning and those two wispy “A”s with crossbars shooting out to the sides. It looked cheap and like the world’s lamest amusement ride logo. The new main logo is a sans serif wordmark with tracking set to 2.7 million pt. (kidding, it’s probably only 200 pt.) that is definitely more elegant and fashionable. It isn’t amazing but it’s nice. The one weird thing is the diminutive size of “M A L L” under “A V E N T U R A”, which becomes almost unreadable in application. In a way it makes the mall own the name Aventura and makes it seem like the suburb around it is named after it, not the other way around. There is also an “AM” monogram with a fashion-y-stencil aesthetic that, again, is not amazing (or that original) but looks good and makes for a solid complement to the wordmark as well as an accent element in the applications.

The applications are actually quite nice, probably nicer than they needed to be. The muted pink and blue colors are both Miami-esque and elegant and the mix of wordmark and monogram is well balanced. The covers directly above are particularly nice, with an interesting tension set by the wide margins and the bold use of the monogram on the bottom corner.

The tagline we developed, A World to Discover, reflects the shift from a retail-centric mentality to a broader exploration of experiences, all endorsed by Aventura Mall’s three new brand pillars of culture, style, and taste.

King & Partners project page

---

---

Things get a little cheesy with the advertising and the overly pretentious photography but I get it that I’m not the target demographic and that, as advertising for a high-end shopping mall wanting to create desirability, it’s actually very much on target. The layouts of all the ads are also nicely done.

---

---

The uniforms aren’t depressing the way most retail uniforms are and I’m not gonna lie: I wouldn’t mind owning that bomber jacket with the palm tree. That’s kind of hot. Overall, this may not be our idea of identity excellence and innovation but as a solution for an expensive, opulent, giant shopping mall attracting upwards of 24 million annual visitors, it’s a surprisingly good, restrained, and well executed approach.