Case Study: LSC Mural Painting (Part 1)

Client: Life Student Care (Yishun)
Team: Nanyang Polytechnic Community Service Club
Purpose: Design and paint all the walls outside as part of of LSC Open House
Target Audience: 7 - 14 year old school children

Umbrella Projects Supervisor: Ranie
Project IC: Salina
Project Assistant: Merlin

The project was initiated quite early and the first time I heard about this project was during one of our meeting on 16 July. I did not consider wanting to be involved in this project at first, until the next time I heard of this project when the the previous Project IC, Samantha, sent many of us an email during our September break seeking assistance for the project.

The First Meeting (15 September)
The first challenge of this project is the design. Samantha already has some ideas in mind - using human silhouettes and hand-print trees. I used that idea and created another idea, which is to paint out scenes of the primary school children school activities. So I asked everyone to chip in some ideas for it by drawing them out. It is also during this time that Samantha has to leave this project for her industrial attachment.

The original idea of school activities.

This is when Salina became the IC and I became her Assistant, which my job scope is akin to an "Art Director" of sort. This was because I am the only design student in the team. There were around 10 of us who came for the first meeting.

The choice of color is next challenge we faced, as the center has a limited budget but lucky for us, the officer in-charge managed to get a variety of colors. It was decided shortly afterward that the school activities design was not that good and since we do not have much time, we just start painting the wall first. We then painted all the walls yellow, as it is the only light colors that is abundant.

Thumbnails of initial design back at home.

Back at home, I worked on the design of the walls. I took note of the things the client wants, such as there has to have human silhouettes. Also, I take into consideration that the client wants something not too "childish" because the previous design looks more like a child care center than an aftercare center. It needs to have an upbeat and active look, thus the choice of shape and colors becomes very important.

I first drew out some rough ideas on a piece of paper, while taking down notes of what should and should not be included. I then use those ideas and develop it further in my computer. One of the notes I took was the design has to be simple as the rest of the team members does not have much or any experiences in art or design.

The Second Meeting (24 September)
I met up with 2 of the girls from last week to discuss further for the design. Salina was unable to join us as she was sick. We showed the design to the officer and she was pleased with it. We then stock checked on the available colors for use and drew the outlines of the background of the design on the wall.

Some photos from week 1 and 2.

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