LYCEUM SCHOOL: COLLABORATIVE EDUCATIONAL MURAL DESIGN

There’s nothing we like more than collaborating with brave, creative clients. And there is no one more creative than children! So we were excited to return to the local primary school, Lyceum, to work on the latest phase of their regeneration project. Lyceum is a forward-thinking co-educational school located in the heart of The City; they believe that London is their classroom. We were commissioned to work with the school to design a mural for their enormous 32 x 7-metre external boundary wall. The mural needed to reflect the values of the school, celebrating both their locality in the city and their passion for wildlife and sustainability. After a rigorous design exploration, we were inspired by a William Morris module on the curriculum and chose a repeat pattern format as a vehicle for the content they wanted to include. As part of the project, we conducted a repeat pattern workshop with year five pupils, introducing them to several methods of creating their own repeat patterns, using the same elements that were to appear in the final design, to involve them in the design process. The finished mural consisted of 4 mirror repeats, hand-painted using traditional sign painting methods. The wall, which sits in the outdoor play area and is visible from most classrooms, has been transformed from an expanse of grey to a colour-scape that serves as a backdrop to education and play alike, as well as reinforcing the school’s core values. 

The mural was one of five areas painted in this phase of the project, bringing the total number of murals painted in the school to 10 so far… But we’ve got our eye on some more blank walls that could use a little JOY!