Mall Graphics Submission Process: A Leasing Team Walkthrough

You have a signed lease, a handover date, and a tenant who wants to open in six weeks. The hoarding goes up before anything else does. That puts the mall graphics submission process at the front of the critical path — and if it stalls, everything behind it stalls too.

This walkthrough covers what the submission process actually involves, where it typically breaks down, and how to move through it without losing days to back-and-forth.

What the Submission Process Is Actually Asking For

Most mall landlords — Simon, Cadillac Fairview, Oxford Properties, Ivanhoe Cambridge — require formal approval of hoarding graphics before any panels are printed or installed. The submission is not a formality. It is a review against the property's design criteria, the common area brand standards, and any tenant-specific requirements in the lease.

What gets submitted varies by property, but a complete package typically includes:

• Dimensioned drawings showing panel layout relative to the lease line
• Artwork files at the correct resolution and colour profile
• Material specifications (substrate, finish, mounting method)
• A site photo or as-built drawing confirming the physical hoarding structure

Some landlords also require confirmation that the installer is approved to work in the mall — which means coordinating with mall operations before the submission goes in.

The Sequence That Actually Works

1. Confirm the Landlord's Criteria Before You Start Artwork

Every property has a design criteria document. Get it before the tenant's creative team touches a file. It will specify maximum panel height, permitted substrates, whether full-bleed graphics are allowed, and what the review timeline looks like.

Skipping this step is the most common reason submissions come back rejected. The tenant produces artwork, the artwork gets adapted to panels, the panels get submitted — and then mall operations flags a substrate that isn't on the approved list, or a graphic that extends past the lease line.

That costs you a week, minimum.

2. Conduct a Site Survey Before Artwork Is Adapted

The handover drawing and the physical space are rarely identical. Columns, existing fixtures, and structural elements all affect panel placement. A site survey captures actual dimensions — not theoretical ones — so artwork adaptation is done once, correctly.

Skip the survey and adapt artwork to drawing dimensions, and you risk panels that don't fit on site. Re-printing is not a fast fix.

3. Prepare the Submission Package to the Landlord's Format

This is where submissions stall most often. Landlords have specific file format requirements, naming conventions, and portal procedures. A PDF submitted to the wrong contact, or artwork files in the wrong colour space, can add three to five business days to the review cycle before anyone has even looked at the design.

Match the format exactly. If the criteria document is ambiguous, call mall operations directly and confirm before you submit.

4. Build in Review Time — and a Revision Round

Most landlords take three to seven business days to review a submission. Properties with active renovation programs or multiple concurrent tenant fit-outs often run longer.

Plan for one revision round. First submissions rarely clear without at least a minor comment. If the artwork is well-prepared and the package is complete, revisions tend to be minor — a colour adjustment, a panel trim, a file format correction. But they still take time.

5. Confirm Approval in Writing Before Ordering Print

Verbal approval from a mall operations contact is not approval. Get the sign-off in writing — email is fine — before print is ordered. It protects you if there is a dispute about what was approved, and it protects the tenant if the installed panels are later questioned.

Where Leasing Teams Lose Time

The submission process has four common failure points.

Artwork that wasn't built for hoarding panels. Campaign creative is designed for digital screens or print ads. Adapting it to a 10-foot-tall hoarding panel at close viewing distance requires different resolution, different compositional choices, and often different file formats. When the adaptation is done by someone unfamiliar with large-format print, the submission comes back for technical reasons that have nothing to do with the design itself.

Incomplete packages. A submission missing the material spec sheet or the dimensioned drawing gets held, not reviewed. Mall operations will not chase you for the missing document. You will find out when you follow up.

Wrong contacts. Large mall properties have separate teams for leasing, operations, and design review. Submitting to the leasing contact who handled your deal does not mean the design review team has seen it. Confirm the correct submission contact for graphics approvals specifically.

No buffer for the landlord's timeline. If the tenant's opening date is fixed and you have not built in the landlord's review window, the math does not work. The submission process cannot be compressed because you are behind schedule. The landlord's timeline is the landlord's timeline.

How a Single Vendor Changes the Process

When print, installation, and artwork adaptation sit with separate vendors, the submission package gets assembled from multiple sources. Each handoff is a point where something can be wrong, late, or misformatted.

A single-vendor model — where one company handles the site survey, artwork adaptation, print, and installation — produces a submission package that has been checked internally before it reaches the landlord. The dimensioned drawings match the adapted artwork because the same team produced both. The material spec is accurate because the same team is doing the print.

Rapid Retail Graphics manages the complete process from survey to installed panels, with an average lead time of 1 to 5 business days from survey to sign-off. Artwork is adapted from existing brand files or campaign creative, and the submission package is prepared to the landlord's format. Final pricing is confirmed after site photo and drawing review.

If you are evaluating vendors for a multi-location program, the vendor selection guide for leasing teams covers what to look for and how to structure the comparison. For a closer look at how mall operations teams evaluate vendors during the approval process itself, this walkthrough of what gets you approved faster is worth reading before your next submission.

The Practical Next Step

Before artwork is touched, confirm the landlord's design criteria and the correct submission contact for graphics approvals. Those two things determine everything that follows.

If you are working against a tight opening timeline, get a quote before you have committed any time to artwork. Knowing the lead time and what the submission package requires changes how you sequence the work.

Learn more at rapidretailgraphics.com.

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