Amp Your Space with Graffiti Art by Paintshop Studio

What do you call a writing or drawing spray painted on a wall in a public space?

In the past, I have featured articles that incorporated artwork mostly done by graphic artists using paint on walls and floors. For me, using these types of artwork delivers a strong branding statement and gives an extra “punch” to the space. I came across a small retail space that used graffiti art on a wall. The space is understated but with that extra punch, the space is lively and fun. So I reached out to the group behind the graffiti and asked about their process and how they participate in a design project. To that, I bring artist and designer Rick Walker, founder of Paintshop Studio in London.

Railton Rd. art by Paintshop Studio

1. What part of the design project do you get pulled in?

Rick: I do tend to get pulled in to projects at various stages and am always happy to do this, but I always love to get involved with the early stages if possible, helping to develop the concept and look and feel. One of my favourite projects was an interior we did for the Kaff Bar in Brixton, the owner had a large, slightly sterile looking white space and wanted us to come up with ideas on how to make the space more intimate and to give the bar an identity. I started by suggesting a few routes we could take by researching concepts, creating mood-boards and loose sketches to show how they could work in the space. I have always been a big fan of ‘super-graphics’, created by designers such as Barbara Stauffacher Solomon in the 60′s/70′s, its something that really excites me and is a great way to mix my two passions of graphic design and graffiti art/large scale murals. This idea of large scale graphics formed a large part of the inspiration behind the chosen route, we mixed various images and type styles that reflected some of the amazing vintage advertising that you can still see around the the Brixton area and rendered these with a graffiti style and energy that is also a key part of the make-up of Brixton.

Kaff Bar art by Paintshop Studio

We have also worked in collaboration with interior designers where they have suggested a style and direction and we have then developed this creating a series of visuals of the artwork in-situation to show how it would look. A good example of this was another Brixton based project for Wishbone, a new restaurant from the people behind Meat Liquor. Here we were approached by the very talented Shed interior design studio to work with them and create the art for the walls. They suggested a vintage typography style in rich primary colours and we developed the design around this, choosing chicken related slogans such as Chicken Feed and Pecking Order to be the main features.

Wishbone art by Paintshop Studio

Danielle Proud’s interior design company also approached us to work with them on her super-club Proud2 interior. We were initially commissioned to do a single opp-art inspired wall where they already new what images they wanted us to paint, but we then also suggested a number of other ideas and design concepts for other areas in the club and ended up painting an entire floor. Here we suggest Klimpt inspired artworks for one section and an art nouveau styled area with cherry blossom trees, a large pheasant and a lady in a hammock.

Proud2 art by Paintshop Studio

All of these projects have been hugely enjoyable and have each taken their own creative path to completion. I think its important to be able to be flexible with your approach when working on a such a varied range of projects and clients.

2. How do you decide on the art work?

Rick: Every client is different and I think our creative process needs to be flexible to get the best results. Sometimes we are given very specific briefs of how the final result should be but more often than not we are able to work with a client or interior designers to develop the concepts from an initial conversation or idea, through to mood-boards and detailed visuals of the final concept. I have spent many years working in graphic design and am usually able to pick up very quickly on peoples thoughts and ideas and to interpret these on brief and on budget. Usually the best results come from a collaborative effort where we can bounce ideas back and forth to develop something really exciting.

MarketPlace art by Paintshop Studio

3. What medium do you use to create the artwork and on what surfaces?

Rick: The majority of the time we use spraypaint, the colours are strong and hardwearing and in the right hands there is very little limitations on what can be achieved. But we are always looking to push what we do and try to keep an open-mind to materials and how to get the best and most exciting results. We have mixed vinyl graphics into our work previously, natural woods, large paper prints and even projected images. As I say, we are always open to new ideas, surfaces and materials and there is usually a way to work around any issues that come up from trying something new.

Crayon art by Paintshop Studio

4. How do you charge?

Rick: Our design and production charges are based on a daily rate and materials are priced depending on the size of the wall and the amount of detail. The detail and the style of a design usually dictates how long it will take so we find this is the best way to price our work. For example a beautiful photorealistic portrait on a small wall may cost the same in time as a much larger wall with a simple typographic design.

Concerto Group office interior art by Paintshop Studio

5. How is the approval process before setting out to do the work?

Rick: We aim for clear sign-off stages at agreed points through-out the design and conception stages, this way it helps with managing the budgets and so that everyone is clear and knows what to expect before we start the production.

Virgin Media Office Interior art by Paintshop Studio

6. What is Paintshop studio and why did you start this service?

Rick: Paintshop Studio is the result of mixing a life-long passion for creative graphic design, marketing and graffiti art.

Founded in 2007 by artist & designer Rick Walker, Paintshop has forged its own path in establishing graffiti art as an accepted form of design, integrating the spray can as part of the studio’s design tools along with the pen and mouse.

Combining our passions we have found that design, marketing & graffiti art can really feed off each other and that this unusual alchemy can create really exciting, unique and effective results for communicating brand messages and simply creating beautiful design.

Paintshop have been fortunate enough to work with some of the world’s leading brands as well as helping to establish some newer ones.

We have enjoyed applying our unique skills to a huge variety of exciting projects and a wide ranging mix of media and are always looking forward to the next challenge.

So going back to my first question, what do you call a writing or drawing spray painted on wall surface? We call it graffiti art, I simply call it cool.

Latest Images

Trending Articles

Latest Images