“I’m a big proponent of supporting the local arts, and when we can partner with an artist on a project, we do it. I wanted to surprise my staff with a splash of color when they returned to the office from our time away due to COVID-19. Here’s how we partnered with local artist, Grace Watters, on a new mural in our entryway.” — Braden Keith, Owner
Your work environment should encourage creativity and productivity. At least, that’s how we feel about our office! Since moving in 2019, the Romega team has slowly made fun changes to our office that make us sincerely enjoy spending time here.
One of those steps was always to create a mural in the front hallway. Braden had a vision, and while the exact design of the mural changed, he knew it needed to be something bold and vibrant. During our time away from the office, he met Grace Watters, who created a mural that the whole team was excited (and surprised) to see, and that will welcome each client to Romega Digital.
Grace is a recently graduated senior from Darlington, who has been interested in art ever since her elementary and middle school art teacher inspired her by teaching different mediums. She’s dabbled in many artistic endeavors, including photography and painting. She also loves animals (her family has four cats and two dogs), and on top of that, she also plays tennis and lacrosse. In the fall, she’s headed to Samford University and plans to double major in journalism and Spanish, but she still wants to focus on art on her own time.
Here’s her approach for murals:
1. Find Some Inspiration
Grace had free rein to paint whatever she wanted, and while searching for inspiration, she came across this image.
She loved the range of colors and the way the triangles merged together. It’s a fun, dynamic, geometric piece that speaks to much of our current branding, so we were excited to see it with a Romega spin!
2. Lean Into The Space
While looking for inspiration, she was also thinking about what would fit well on the wall. We love our office; it’s got enough space to grow and has a ton of personality and charm, just like many of the buildings in downtown Rome. Grace had to take these elements into account. For example, a chair rail separated the wall into two, so she knew she would have to alter the design to fit the canvas.
3. Create The Palette
Grace ended up using more than 30 different colors for the wall. Instead of buying individual colors, she bought the primary colors along with white and black and hand-mixed each shade you see here. (How impressive is that?)
4. Paint That Mural!
Grace drew out the triangles and lines to map out where they’d intersect. Each section has its own color story, and at that point, it was up to her to use painters tape to fill the spots and trace the black lines!
From beginning to end, this mural took her about 3-4 weeks to finish, and approximately 30 hours to complete.
What we wound up with was a mural that was geometric and colorful, which fit beautifully with our brand. Bonus: We now have the perfect spot for photoshoots in the office!
“Hire great people and get out their way – that’s how I approach my business, and how I approached this project. If you want to bring some color into the office, don’t hire an artist and box them into your vision. Hire an artist whose vision you already identify with, and let them do the work that inspires them. What you’ll end up with is something that’s probably much better than you could have imagined.” — Braden Keith, Owner
To Grace: Thank you so much for adding some joy to our office space. We can’t wait to see what you accomplish in college and beyond!
If you want to see more of Grace’s work, just look below (we highly recommend it).
