Author: GirouxStudio

When it comes to marketing, you have some choices. But one thing is certain: your brand needs to stand out! Whether you’re in the business of selling a product or providing services, there’s something that can make all the difference when it comes to establishing a personal/professional image — hand painted murals Tampa.

Hand Painted Murals Services are one of the best ways to contribute to public spaces.  The primary goal of these works of art is to create an aesthetically pleasing environment which is not only in alignment with contemporary culture but also communicates care and investment by an owner, thereby increasing the value of the property.

However, it is important that you consider several factors before moving ahead with your project. Read this post to understand the must-knows from one of the best hand painted mural companies in the USA!

Why opt for Hand Painted Murals for Your Business, School, or Home?

Hand painted murals are a great choice for any custom project. The key is versatility! Each mural is unique and custom designed to fit your interior or exterior space with your project goals in mind. Commercial businesses like restaurants, hotels, and showrooms can benefit by adding or enhancing the visual identity of your brand with a mural. Schools, non-profits, and other community-based organizations benefit from hand painted murals by revitalizing underused spaces, encouraging creativity for youth of all ages, and using art to communicate mission and values. Private residential mural projects offer the opportunity to transform your home to reflect your personal aesthetic and décor (while being the envy of your neighbors!).

What to look for when choosing Hand Painted Murals services in the USA?

Choosing the right artist for your hand painted murals in  Florida can be quite challenging. You need to find the artist who will provide professional-level work using quality materials for a price that works with your budget.

Use these tips when choosing Hand Painted Murals services in Tampa USA:

First, consider your location. The area you live in can narrow your options for local artists that boast a portfolio of great projects in your city. Artists with enough industry exposure and guaranteed outcomes will consistently produce better results, saving you from delays, miscommunications and subquality work.

Next, consider the size and surface for your mural project. Is it indoor or outdoor? Wall or ground? Smooth or rough texture? Where you live, the size of your mural, and details about the surface will help determine the project budget. 

In today’s crazy competitive world, it’s crucial for businesses to concentrate on their  brand with an eagle eye to gain more attention and solidify a customer base. Branding and Marketing Strategy is an extremely important aspect of business marketing because it helps build a positive image for your company and establishes public interest. 

Simply put, creative branding and marketing strategies are a great way to build your business and grow new fans. If you’re trying to get your brand off the ground and into the minds of an often hectic and distracted consumer base, a good marketing strategy will be important. The proper positioning of your product, its pricing and its branding and marketing strategy, are all integral to ensuring that you’re able to reach your target audience effectively.

Get comfy in that La-Z-Boy and read on to know more about it!

What is a Brand Strategy ?

A brand strategy is more than just a logo and tagline. Instead, it’s about your company’s entire image. Brand Strategy is an umbrella term for all strategies that provide a competitive advantage to a brand, product or service. It also helps marketers to understand what are the core elements of a brand. 

In other words, brand strategy is the process of driving growth and profitability through your brand. Just as it sounds, it works to ensure that customers recognize and buy your product over any other. Branding is an important element of brand strategy because it helps guide a company’s direction and defines the personality of its products and company culture

Crucial aspects of a Brand Strategy 

A brand strategy is your roadmap for a successful business. And as we all know, every journey begins with a first step. In order to avoid walking into a problem, it’s important to understand the various elements that go into a successful brand strategy.

For instance, in the retail industry, you’ll find that every other store has some sort of brand strategy. Whether it’s a uniform, well executed environmental graphics, or the way the staff interacts with a customer, you are dealing with brand. 

A good brand strategy involves the following:

Communication objectives – How does your brand communicate to your customers? (Selling proposition) 

Audience analysis – Who is your target audience and should you be targeting an audience that may not want your product or service?

Product positioning – How uniquely should you position your product? (Profiles – Who are the consumers who will purchase from you?) 

Value – What are our best selling points that convey value to customer’s mindsets? (Costs – How much will it cost for them to buy from you?)

Imagine it’s 2005 and you’re riding through the streets of Tampa in an unmarked rental van, just you and Shepard Fairey. Your only task is to help one of the greatest street artists of all time plaster the city with posters in preparation for an upcoming exhibition exploring contemporary art and street culture. He asks if you want to post any of your art alongside his and when he sees your sticker design he likes it and encourages you to continue putting it up. 

When Shepard Fairey thinks it’s a good idea, you pay attention. 

That was the beginning of the READ Movement, a positive social messaging campaign designed to promote the love of education and literacy, one impression at a time. By using a model that Shepard Fairey perfected with his OBEY image, READ uses the streets to positively disrupt the everyday bombardment of capitalist messaging. Since that serendipitous day with Fairey, thousands of READ stickers and posters have been found the world over; from New York City to Greece to India and beyond. 

Although the READ symbol has evolved over time, its cornerstone, the blind-folded female bust with butterfly wings, has remained consistent. Each piece of the design is significant. The butterfly wings represent the transformation made possible through reading– the opportunity to expand one’s mind, understand new concepts, explore other realities, or to simply get lost in an imaginary world. The figure is female as a respectful nod to the artist’s mom, a strong single mother who encouraged Jay’s love for literature at a young age. Lastly, the bust is blind folded, symbolizing our culture’s collective lack of attention– lack of attention to one another, to written or visual communication, lack of concern for much of anything beyond the cell phones in our hands. The blinded woman serves to create a startling, thought provoking image when passed unexpectedly in the street. Over her eyes, the bold capital letters spelling READ speak for themselves. The design is iconically simple and yet perfectly complex.

There have been a number of studies validating that neighborhood disorder and decay (characterized by graffiti, abandoned buildings, litter, public drunkenness, etc.) is directly linked to a higher risk of psychological distress, depression, substance use, post traumatic stress disorder and feelings of powerlessness1. Additional studies have sought to uncover whether or not murals have an impact on neighborhood disorder and decay. Obviously, substantial solutions to neighborhood disorder are complex and require more resources than an art program alone can solve. But understanding the connection between murals and neighborhood wellbeing is certainly helpful and can assist with other efforts to increase the health and safety of residents. 

In 2015, Yale University published its findings about the impact of the Philadelphia Mural Arts’ Porch Light Program, which seeks to transform neighborhoods through mural art. The four-year study found that “after almost two years, residents living within one mile of more than one newly installed mural reported: 

• A sustained relative increase in collective efficacy, including social cohesion and trust among neighbors as well as informal neighborhood social control. 
• A modest but sustained relative increase in perceptions of neighborhood aesthetic quality, including the quality of the walking environment and perceived neighborhood safety.2 ”

The study doesn’t provide substantial evidence about why murals create an increase in collective efficacy or trust among neighbors but there is certainly plenty of informal evidence that supports the theory that “murals stimulate narratives of cultural and community connection, beauty, resilience, and hope. Such narratives may stand in contrast with prevailing narratives of neighborhood decay and disorder, and thus inspire residents to appreciate their neighborhood’s aesthetic qualities, foster a sense of cohesion with other neighbors, and nurture a belief that residents look out for one another. “ 

The study suggests that ultimately, the power of mural art lies in its ability to be a catalyst for social change. The beautification of a mural in a neighborhood creates a sense of agency for individual community members, as opposed to the powerlessness that follows disorder and decay. 

There are many places in Tampa Bay that invite one to pause and truly appreciate the beauty and brilliance of our surroundings. In fact, Tampa is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States because the secret is out about the weather, beaches, culture, lack of state taxes, and relative affordability. Frighteningly though, the city has consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous places for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. 

To combat this, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor has adopted the Vision Zero plan, aimed at achieving a shared goal of zero traffic fatalities or severe injuries. Originating in Europe, Vision Zero is innovative in that it embraces a cross-disciplinary collaborative approach to road safety. By engaging local traffic planners, engineers, policymakers, public health professionals and artists, Vision Zero acknowledges that many factors influence safe mobility. It also recognizes that people make mistakes but with smart design and adaptive policies, those mistakes don’t need to be fatal. 

Through the Vision Zero initiative, Mayor Castor launched the Crosswalks to Classrooms project with Greater Public Studio, led by artist Jay Giroux. Greater Public Studio (formerly Giroux Projects) designed a variety of custom graphics based on classic children’s literature like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, The Great Kapok Tree and Moby Dick, among others. The graphics were made into custom stencils and used to paint crosswalks leading to nine elementary schools across Tampa. By incorporating stencils, each crosswalk is uniform and can be completed during a single school day. A slightly muted color palette is used to add vibrancy without competing with roadway traffic signals. Durable outdoor acrylic paint with slip resistant additives ensure longevity for the ground murals while abiding by transportation regulations. In addition to celebrating the joy of classic literature, the hope is that drawing attention to the crosswalks will cause motorists to slow down, potentially saving a child’s life. 

A recently released study from the Bloomberg Foundation details the impact of asphalt art on safe mobility. The nationwide study analyzed crash histories at seventeen sites with asphalt art.  Additionally, it studied driver and pedestrian behavior in real time at five different asphalt art sites. The results found, on average, the rate of car crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists decreased by 50% when art was applied to the roadway. Furthermore, the rate of drivers yielding to pedestrians increased by 27%. Those are staggering results when considering Tampa averages 200 traffic related fatalities per year. Imagine the impact of more art in public spaces. 

The Living Shades mural project is a dynamic homage to Ybor City. Located at Hillsborough Community College’s Ybor campus, Living Shades is one part of NEST, a multi-campus public art initiative that’s transforming sections of HCC Dale Mabry and Ybor into socially activated green spaces. Truly encapsulating the spirit of collaboration, the design was created by Greater Public Studio’s Jay Giroux and Tampa artist Edgar Sanchez Cumbas, as a tribute to three specific Ybor artists while also featuring artwork from an HCC student. By combining elements of drawing, photography, printmaking and painting, the mural honors Suzanne Camp Crosby (1948-2020), Carolyn Kossar (1949-2020), and Theo Wujcik (1936-2014). 

Delving deeper into the significance of these Ybor based artists, we can better appreciate the subtle nods to their work found in the mural. Suzanne Camp Crosby, a respected photographer, was a professor of photography at HCC for 38 years until her passing in 2020. Her playful work, often characterized by unexpected objects added to everyday scenes, is referenced in the use of positive and negative space throughout the mural. Additionally, the overall composition of the design was influenced by Camp Crosby’s work. 

Carolyn Kossar was the Art Gallery Director at HCC Ybor for 19 years until her passing in 2020. She was also an artist in her own right, specializing in printmaking. Some of the subject matter found throughout the hexagonal shapes are references to Kossar’s work, specifically some of the floral elements. 

The late Theo Wujcik was one of Tampa’s best known 20th century artists. Eclectic and experimental, Wujcik’s primary mediums were drawing, printmaking and painting. In the 1980’s, he discovered what became his signature motif, the chain-link fence. The Living Shades mural mimics Wujcik’s use of the chain-link fence as a means of communicating story, imagery, and various ideas through a single structural device. 

One of the images portrayed in the mural is a portrait of José Martí, known as “The Apostle of Cuban Independence.” Selected from several student submissions, this image drawn by HCC student Thinh Nguyen depicts the important relationship between Ybor City and Cuba. Martí and many other Cubans lived in Tampa to escape the injustices of Spanish rule. Remaining close enough to the island to nurture connections but far enough away to plot a revolution, Martí eventually sparked the insurrection that would lead to Cuba’s independence in 1902. To this day, Ybor City is rich in Cuban cultural influence and is home to one of the only Cuban owned pieces of land in the United States, appropriately named José Martí Park. The only other Cuban owned land in the US is the Cuban Embassy in Washington, DC.