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Wall Mural Design

I was briefed to design a mural at my workplace, Frontend.com, by Frank Long, one of the company directors. This project evolved into a pleasing design, beginning from writing a concept note to digitally iterating patterns and forms, which further went on the walls with the help of a grid & scale technique.

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I was briefed to design a mural at my workplace, Frontend.com, by Frank Long, one of the company directors. This project evolved into a pleasing design, beginning from writing a concept note to digitally iterating patterns and forms, which further went on the walls with the help of a grid & scale technique.

 

I enjoyed working on illustrations, and this was a very therapeutic project giving me some break from the digital world. It was stretched over a few weeks I used my spare time at work for this project.

Concept Writing

I was asked to take some inspiration from the Indian colors and patterns. I did initially sketch a few concepts based on India. But in my opinion, having a general idea would have been better to weave a story than any kind of theme.

 

I had some more ideas relevant to Frontend.com as a UX consultancy. Some of the themes were “Design Thinking,” “A day in the life of a UX designer,” “Design process,”. I did a brainstorming session on my own and came up with a few keywords like a right place, eternal, heaven, earth, wealth, happy people, Design Utopia, balance, a cog in the wheel, etc. I also started collecting references for the look and feel I wanted to go for and sketched some ideas and presented it to Frank. He distilled “Design Utopia” out of those ideas.

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Murak Artwork

I wrote a note on Design Utopia and described it in my words to my colleagues and Frank, and they gave me feedback on keeping the concept light and not very abstract by illustrating stories in the history of Frontend.com. I liked their suggestion. I requested all my colleagues to contribute any amusing stories they knew related to Frontend.com, and they did.

 

I picked up elements from these stories and started sketching forms and shapes and made an account of these amusing stories in the mural design.

 

I used a vector-based tool, Adobe Illustrator, and did a composition with all the stories I chose from the given list by my colleagues. My strategy was to highlight 5–6 prominent stories and keep some elements from the rest of the stories floating around the main ones. I went ahead with Frontend.com’s primary brand color palette of blues and greys, at least for this phase.

Paint Prep

Initial Sketches

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Feedback notes from my colleagues.

Design Feedback

I wanted feedback from all my officemates, so I divided the entire artwork to fit on a few A3 prints (that’s the biggest size printer at work prints), stuck them together, pasted them on to the wall, and provided a bunch of post-it notes for their feedback. My colleagues gave some generous feedback, which I have added in my article on medium.com. I took their feedback and made changes to my artwork accordingly.

Final Design & Execution

I finalized the design and tried a few different color palettes. I then superimposed these images in situ on the blank wall image using Adobe Photoshop. It helped decide which color palette to go with; we finally went with Frontend.com’s primary brand palette, adding only accents of warm color to the palette contrasting the cool shades.

 

I prepared the wall for painting by filling any cracks, followed by a coat of white emulsion, let it dry for 12 hours, and I was all set to start drawing on the wall. I used a grid on my illustration with 1:1 sections, numbered the columns, and gave alphabets to the rows. I did the math of scaling the same number of squares on the wall and drew the grid on the wall. Stuck a reference print and drew the entire illustration on the wall by referring to the grid.

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First Image: Colour patches on the wall, Second Image: My colleague Liz helping me paint, Last Image: Me masking the pieces to be colored.

Some Take Away Points:

  • Apply the crack filler as little as one could. (Removing the excess is time-consuming, once it dries).

  • Always superimpose your design on an image of the actual canvas to judge the outcome even before you start painting.

  • The use of the grid system to scale the drawing on a larger surface was a successful technique.

  • Colour sampling on small patches is necessary before starting the paint job.

  • Ask the Colour Consultants in paint shops regarding the quantity of wall paint required for the given dimensions of the wall. It helps avoid wastage.

  • Patience and persistence are quite essential.

  • If one can get a decent finish with freehand painting, then one must go for it. Masking tapes do help to get an excellent finish, though they are quite time-consuming.

  • Make sure the masking tape is stripped, only after the paint has dried completely. It could spread over the edges otherwise.

  • Paint the lighter colour patches first, to avoid retouching later on the darker patches.

Digital Tools

Adobe Photoshop |  Adobe Illustrator

Mural Design after execution on the wall.

How I did my first mural design at a UX Consultancy

You can check this detailed article I wrote on this project.

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