I worked with the Earl's Restaurants interior design team to design and paint the centrepiece mural in their Tin Palace location, a commercial restaurant space. Scroll down for the case study!
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Title: SAMARA
Client: Earl's Restaurants
Location: Earl's Tin Palace • Edmonton, Canada
Above: The digital version of the finalized mural design.
Below: some of ~50 options as I went through the design process to arrive at the above.
Q: How did you create the final design?
A: The client really liked some of my Mezzaluna greeting card designs, so that was a great starting point!
To start the design process I adjusted the composition and colours in those card designs, redesigning the motifs to fit a long, wide wall. I was happy to have an in-situ rendering to work from, so the whole team could visualize the mural in the space.
The same designs can change a lot with just a shift in colour. I made ~50 of these combinations, and showed the client only the strongest ones. It's part of a designer's job to edit down options to what will suit the project best. It's choice overload at times, but also so satisfying to get the right design in the end.
The Earl's team and I narrowed the final design options down together to the shapes and colours that worked for their space. I kept a special eye on making sure the design could be hand painted with accuracy and in the time I had to paint. When the process was done, it was time to get the mural painting gear together and go on site.
Above: tracing the mural design onto the wall using a projector
Q: How long did it take to paint the mural?
A: 6 days in a row, 8 hours a day = 48 hours! You only have as long as the construction process can remain reasonably dust-free and you need to work around others who need access to the wall or area you're working in. This means you've got to balance working as fast as possible with also creating a really good result (the story of designers everywhere!).
Above: roughing in and hand-drawing shapes from the digital design to fill in. I am forever thankful for the drawing classes I took in design school when I work on mural projects!
Painters tape was my best friend in this mural. Detail after detail getting painted in, sometimes needing to leave it all overnight to dry before tape could be peeled. Careful planning and scheduling was key.
Above: planning curves by eye
Above: Peeling the final grid lines was so satisfying.
Above: A small fraction of the giant tape ball I made over several days.
Obligatory view from the mural painting platform!
IT'S DONE! HAPPY HOUR ANYONE? It's always a thrill to make custom designs for specific projects. If you've got a custom design project in mind, do get in touch and let's see what we can get done together!
]]>Custom surface design for cast concrete
Lewis Farms Fire Hall • Edmonton, Canada
Surface Design at 2m x 3m
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Dipping an entire building in pattern is an opportunity worth taking on - just sayin’!
Working in-depth with the architectural design team on the Lewis Farms Fire Hall building project, I created this design through a collaborative process that included concept presentations to the architecture team and further refinements from those conversations.
Much of my inspiration for the final piece was thinking about the Northern Lights and starry skies on a crisp, clear Alberta night. Maybe you’re standing in your backyard and you’re just in awe of what you see above you - you’ve forgotten about the chill for a moment. And it’s a very common experience that many take for granted - not many people in Canada, let alone the world, live at the latitude to see Northern Lights regularly. I think as Albertans we live for those moments.
Aesthetic considerations aside, the design had to have manufacturing considerations tightly in mind as it needed to translate into a casting mold, and be poured into the concrete panels forming the exterior cladding of a large portion of Lewis Farms Fire Hall building.
The original digital design.
Mold being prepped at the concrete casting manufacturer.
Completed concrete panel before delivery to the fire hall for installation.
Thank you to the Edmonton Arts Council for the commission. There is a nice writeup about the piece on their blog.
]]>Acetate wall installation exhibited at IDS Toronto • January 2019
Metal hook prototype exhibited at the Work/Life Umbra Prototype Show at DesignTO Festival • January 2020 • Voted a DesignLines festival favourite!
The basis for the Dot Dot Dash design was a series of abstract drawings that I worked to make 3D. Creating a three dimensional piece from a two dimensional vision and experimenting with new materials, this is a hand-drawn composition lasercut out of colourful acetates and mounted on wooden pegs.
A year later, a new version of this project also turned into a prototype wall mounted hook system out of powdercoated aluminum and a redesigned two-piece maple peg system. Is it art, or is it functional? Good design is both, of course!
ACETATE WALL INSTALLATION
ALUMINUM WALL HOOKS
After some experimentation, I could see there was opportunity to adjust the wall hanging into wall hooks. The result was lasercut, powdercoated aluminum in various shapes and colours, and a separating peg system to keep it all together.
Above: Chrome squiggle hook
Following the aesthetics of joy, the hooks are all about pop colours, curvy shapes, and the enjoyably unexpected.
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A mural to dress up the newest Culina location: On the Lake. Located in the historic MCM beaut that is the Mayfair Pavilion in Hawrelak Park in Edmonton, the client requested greens and blues, nature and vegetables. A matching secondary pattern was created as well. Digitally printed and installed on site. Fun fact: I used to skate on this frozen park lake as a kid, trying not to fall too many times on the ice - who knew I’d be be putting a mural in this very building!
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