The Dubai Mall is one of the world’s largest shopping malls, so it was a fitting venue for Nike to build their largest ever Nike Store.
The Nike Store at Dubai Mall is 68,000 square feet (3,290 square metres). It’s a true giant, eclipsing all other shoe stores in the UAE and most others in the world. The interior was expertly decorated as a showcase for the Nike brand, and part of this involved creating unique signage for inside the store.
In fitting with its location, Nike decided to have signage created in Arabic and they opted for 3D printing to produce these.
The sign above was designed by Jeroen Simons. It reads “Victory, Love Dubai” and was 3D printed on a Builder Extreme by Lay3ers from Eindhoven. The team at Lay3ers 3D printed the sigh with a layer height of 0.5 mm with a 5% infill – infill being the factor that influences print weight and strength. The higher the percentage, the heavier – and stronger – a part is generally.
The sign printed for Nike may might look like it’s made from chrome, but the sign was in fact 3D printed in PLA (a biodegradable plastic) and post-processed by a company called Dutch Deco Finish to give it the chrome finish. The original white PLA letters were transformed with a plastic chroming process.
The result is spectacular and a fitting tribute to the UAE. The store itself isn’t too shabby either. Here’s a photo of the central shoe hub:
And the sign again (as photographed by Behance):
3D printer: Builder Extreme 2000 PRO
Material: PLA (White)
Finishing: Chrome plated
Print specifications: Printed at a layer height of 0.5 mm with a 5% infill (infill pattern unspecified).
If you enjoyed this case study, you can find more like it at our art and fashion page. All images are credit to Builder 3D (unless specified otherwise).