As part of my project with the Dedham Public Library, I recently completed this “circuit board” mural!
Just adjacent to this mural is a space dedicated to video games, so the interior designer, Anne Mueller, asked that I somehow incorporate a digital theme in my mural. To do this, Anne wanted something that would not be quickly dated, but instead was a bit more abstract. To go with the rest of the space and the building itself, Anne also wanted the mural to incorporate historic colors, and very specifically a color called Buckland blue that is used in the room at the bottom of these stairs.
As I looked at the wall, I knew I wanted to work with the angle of the railing, rather than try to fight against it. After running through various ideas in my head, I came the idea of using a circuit board as my base concept and decided to run with it! Following Anne’s guidance, I didn’t want to quite do a literal depiction of a circuit board, but instead I went with this clean, graphic approach that builds off the angle of the stairs. For the colors, we went with greens to go along with the circuit board idea, but tweaked them to historic greens to also flow with the area around the mural.
Finally, I wanted to play with the fact that the mural was in a stairwell and also tie in a bit of the video game idea. This is where my idea for the buttons came from. Rather than just the circuits, I wanted them connected to something – in this case buttons like you would have on a game. Here is where I tied in the historic blue colors and had fun with the idea that the stairs go up and down.
Below is the final result. I hope it is enjoyed by library-goers for many years to come!
Enjoy,
Jason
Close-up of the buttons