I took some time off this week from making letters onscreen to make some on walls!
At the end of last school year, my son’s high school principal asked if I could help liven up the campus over the summer with some signs to help new (and even current) students to find their way around the campus’ maze of visually identical cinder block buildings.
I came up with a system of big block letters that would be both easy to paint and to see from a distance. We added solid color drop shadows so that when the walls are repainted, they won’t have to paint inbetween the letters.
To prepare, I measured the available spaces, and designed the letters and signs to fit on a grid with one inch = one foot.
We redrew the large letters on the wall with a measuring tape and chalk lines.
Kids rolled out the big areas…
… and brushed in the details.
For the more detailed signage we painted yellow first, then covered the areas we wanted to remain yellow with painter’s tape.
We then painted blue on top, and once it dried, pulled the tape off to reveal the yellow underneath.
Lastly, we painted the adjacent wooden photo boxes to match.
Working in the physical world was a fun change of pace, but challenging! The bumpy stucco walls are sure difficult to paint sharp edges on. And unfortunately there’s no undo command…
But the results turned out pretty cool!
