Napa Valley Mural
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Artist
Mural
July 2021
Napa Valley, CA
The Senza Hotel in Napa Valley hired me to design a mural for their 40’ lobby wall. My clients wanted to create a moment where their hotel guests would stop and be inspired by all that Napa Valley has to offer. The color of each region is based on the most popular wine grown in that area. Various important roads, geological features, and wineries are also shown on the map. I worked closely with my clients on every aspect of the design, careful to include the most relevant landmarks to their clientele. I designed the map digitally and worked directly with a local print shop to print and install the mural. I carefully split the design into multiple panels, mindfully placing text away from edges to ensure a seamless finish.
Early on in the design process, I worked closely with Senza Hotel and an interior designer to iterate possible mural designs. We took inspiration from the colors of the Napa Valley region, as well as different wine varieties. Deciding on the color story was the first step: the mood board to the right was something I referred back to during the entire design process.
Early Mural Concept Image
Early Client Sketch
In my early concept images and client sketches, the overall shape of the map starts to solidify. I began to refine the color palette, focusing on the reds and purples of the wine varieties and the yellows and greens of the natural landscape that makes Napa so special. We decided to rotate and slightly distort the map to showcase all the major landmarks in the most legible way.
Medium Fidelity Mural Draft
Once we had the colors and overall layout decided, I began to work in Procreate and Photoshop to create a medium-fidelity draft of the mural before moving on to the full size, full resolution piece. I experimented with digital brushes to get a painterly feeling, and tested various fonts.
Finally, after several versions, we settled on the design for the final mural. At this point, I worked on increasing the resolution of the map dramatically so it would print at 300dpi. I redrew the digital illustration by hand using a Wacom tablet and Photoshop. This required a lot of heavy lifting from my computer to create the full-scale 9' x 40' mural!
With the mural design finalized, my next job was coordinating installation. Early on, the client and I had agreed to install the mural as a vinyl decal, working with a local California printer and installer. I worked directly with the print shop, calculating how to split the mural across several panels based on the width of their printer. I included a few inches of overlap to ensure a seamless finish across all 9 panels. I created the installation instructions below to convey the design intent to the installers, who did a beautiful job installing the mural!
