Client/Employer:
Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering
Colorado State University
I designed four very large murals for the walls of the first floor in the CSU Engineering Building. Working with a local vendor for printing/application and university facilities for general cleanup and painting, the overall process took several weeks.
The murals are located along the tour path that prospective students are taken on, through the lowest floor of the building, winding through working labs and points of interest. The path is also the main route foot traffic takes through the building from the Engineering Parking Lot on the north side to the CSU plaza on the south side.
Planning for the murals required numerous trips to examine the route, discussions about current and future lighting, applying a complex brand to an enormous space, and cost concerns. Each mural needed to live by itself, and remain connected across the space through similar elements and layouts that led people to the next design and back.
The mural designs, from first one on the tour stop at the north end, stopping at two near the stairs in the middle, and ending with the main hallway at the south end:
North end, mural 1 (54′ wide)
Bottom of stairs, Mural 10 (20′ wide)
Murals ranged from 20′ wide by 10′ tall at the smallest, to 54′ wide and 12′ tall for the largest. Each design was designated by its wall location along the tour path, separated by building elements such as doors, section breaks, and so on. Since I designated those sections from the start, all parties from design through vendor application could reference the same wall sections.
I planned out each design to work together along the hallways, and also to avoid existing building items. Things like stairs, vents, pipes, electrical outlets, and other considerations were necessary for a successful install. The planning document below shows the final design, a Photoshop “mocked-up” version of what it should look like, and extensive notes about the wall section itself, in this case the very long wall section 1. Each mural had its own planning document to share with the vendor and stakeholders, along with the full map of the tour path showing all numbers (including unused areas).
Below are photos from the final installation, with a view of each mural and how they interact with one another. In particular, the one point I was going for was that if you were standing at mural 1 on the north end, the college’s tagline “Engineer a World of Difference” was above you and in the distance. Moving down the hallway, that tagline would always be visible, connecting the entire mural stretch and tour path together.
About my CSU position
Work featured on this page was created in my position as the Communications and Marketing Manager for the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering at Colorado State University. CSU owns all copyrights, and work featured above is only for portfolio uses.