Adams Tyler Design
UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI CAMPUS MURALS
For my first and second co-op rotations, I worked for the University of Cincinnati’s Campus Services Marketing team. Throughout my time there, I was tasked with creating various murals around campus to raise school spirit and add life to spots where students frequent. I worked on murals and installations for Morgens Hall, Scioto Hall, CRC Hall, and Bearcats Café.
In my initial semester working for UC, I designed murals to fill the space in the common areas of residence halls. The focus was to build a connection between the campus and the rest of uptown Cincinnati as a whole while retaining school spirit.
RESEARCH
For each mural, my first step was to experience the space that I would be designing around. Understanding the shape of the wall, the scale, and the atmosphere was crucial in giving me a baseline to begin my process. Next, I took inspiration from campus and key locations around the city. Communicating Cincinnati pride is what tied all of these murals together.
Before composing possible compositions for my mural, the team I was working with and I created vectorized versions of the buildings and landmarks we wanted to use. These would become assets for all of us to share in order to make the design process much easier. I designed the assets seen below in Illustrator.
After creating assets, I looked at ways of combining them in a cohesive composition that would look good as a wall mural. Making campus feel like the heart of the city of Cincinnati was at the forefront of my mind when designing.
After showing the first round of ideas to my client, we next had to narrow in on an idea. The composition they liked the most was the cityscape with a reflection representing the Ohio River. So, the next step was to create many different ideas with that overall composition, with variations to give the client a wide breadth of options.
FINAL DESIGNS
Throughout the duration of my second semester with campus services, a team of designers and I took on a larger-scale mural project. This entailed creating a design that would surround the popular campus dining hall, “Bearcats Café”. Hundreds of students come in and out every day to eat and socialize, so environmental design would be extremely important.
With so much space and so many possible directions to go in, finding a broad aesthetic to encompass the space was the first step. Each of the three designers began with moodboards of possible styles to utilize. My three concepts incorporated aspects of the space and campus. For example, an arcade style to complement the arcade machines or a sporty theme to reference the neighboring football stadium.
I was given the freedom to explore each of my concepts created from my moodboards, so I experimented with several different ways to decorate the space. The ideas ranged from campus pride to celebrating the flavors of food.
Through months of back and fourths, critiques and discussions with my coworkers and clients, we decided focus on a concept that would show off school spirit and bearcat pride. For me that was best represented in my sporty/grunge aesthetic so I spent my time evolving it. The idea of showcasing a timeline of the bearcat was also an idea that the clients liked so I worked to bring it in line with my overall aesthetic choice.
FINISHED MOCKUPS
(INSTALLATION COMING SOON)