Live Brief: Container Mural Designs

This week we worked on a live brief for a local school. I love working with live projects so took the opportunity to generate some ideas to fit the brief. To give some context, the brief was to create a design for a shipping container that had been used during the pandemic to store furniture and is now being repurposed as a hub for community projects. This unsightly container sits near the school grounds so needed to appeal to a younger audience and local people passing the area while still fitting in with the landscape. Much of my work appeals to children anyways so I was excited to generate some concepts. As seen below, I started with an unrestricted colour scheme, playing around with how I could block out colours while maintaining the texture of my original sketches. Before sketching, I did some research on Pinterest into the types of designs that resonated with me to gauge how my style could be implemented onto a 3D object.

Reference imagery: My illustrations at the top, bottom left is by Oli-B, middle right is a collaboration between Low Bros and Billy

I was inspired by Low Bros and Oli-B, one of the artists in a group referred to as 'The Belgian Banksy's'. Their use of colour and abstract shape make the murals impactful and full of depth. My work usually has a lot of detail and texture so it was hard to think with this alternate mindset, looking at how I could simplify my work to make it more suited to the production method and style of murals.

After sketching out a few ideas with robots climbing around the container, I decided to stick with the playful approach but do more of a rocky landscape. From here I sketched out some rock shapes, refined a more muted colour scheme that would appeal to a larger audience and started thinking about how I could introduce some characters into the scene. 

I really like how I've used the rocks to create tortoises, a cave and a crocodile in the back, drawing your eye into the piece. I tried to play around with perspective, making the rocks at the front a lot bigger and moving the horizon line to the top with a giant in the background. It's very playful and fits the brief well so I'm glad I persevered and managed to make something I am happy with. I'm waiting to hear some feedback and find out who got chosen but I really enjoyed working on this brief and hopefully will get the opportunity to work on more in the future, pushing my style to fit different specialisms.

Pinterest. 2021. Billy & Low Bros, Berlin 2012 | Street art, Mural art, Graffiti murals. [online] Available at: <https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/442971313353629076/> [Accessed 13 November 2021].

Inkygoodness. 2021. Inkygoodness. [online] Available at: <http://inkygoodness.com/> [Accessed 13 November 2021].

Site-KnackFocus-NL. 2021. Street art in beeld: de Belgische Banksy's. [online] Available at: <https://focus.knack.be/entertainment/kunst/street-art-in-beeld-de-belgische-banksy-s/diaporama-normal-795245.html?cookie_check=1636801617> [Accessed 13 November 2021].