July 22, 2021 2 min read
Google asked us to create a custom wall mural for their new offices in Warsaw. They wanted the design to celebrate the Polish novelist Władysłav Reymont’s 145th birthday.
Władysłav Reymont was a writer whose work included socialist themes and a romantic view of the Polish agricultural countryside. His most famous novel Chłopi (The Peasants) authentically discusses country life, customs and the spiritual culture of the region. Władysłav Reymont was the 1924 laureate of The Nobel Prize in Literature.
To find a direction for work we spent some time in the studio looking at Polish folk art and traditional crafts from the rural countryside that Reymont wrote about.
The Goral people from the mountains of southern Poland embroider their clothes and carve wood using characteristic motifs, we started to explore by painting floral shapes in the style of the region.
We created a digital draft illustration influenced by the people in Reymont's writing, with images of traditional agricultural workers and floral folk decoration. Google had a very strong color scheme planned for their office, so we made an illustration in off-white layed on top of the base color.
Google were super happy with the direction, so we moved on to digitally illustrating the final custom wall mural design. Because our art is reproduced in very large sizes the final illustration stage can be time consuming, but it's always really rewarding when you see the finished work.
The final design was printed using non-fading gallery quality inks onto a material that we've sourced that is like artists canvas, matt with no sheen, and a fabric quality.
The giant print was installed in Warsaw and we were really happy with the way it looked in place. The colour looks fantastic and the finish looks great under the lights.