Want a Wall Mural? Absolute-ly!
Studio GBM : Brand Storytelling, Research, Placemaking, Outdoor & Indoor Environmental Branding, Wayfinding, Signage, Design and Installation
Absolute Hotel, 30m wide Outdoor Mural
Images of before, inspiration and finished outdoor mural
The Client : Absolute Hotel
The Brief : Create an outdoor mural to cover the 30m wide x 3m high facade of the old terrace opposite the front entrance to the hotel which would also include wayfinding for traffic approaching from Baal’s Bridge.
Our Solution : Tell the story of the local historic Canal District.
The hotel is located on the banks of the Abbey River. The River Shannon and its distributary branch, the Abbey River, completely encircle King's Island in the heart of Limerick City. We redrew the river routes as a vector and used it as a map.
The Abbey River and the The Park Canal, built in the late 18th Century to help transport goods to and from from Limerick City, intersect right next to the hotel. Up to the 1930’s, this area was bustling with mills, lock houses, barges, storage yards, dray horses and wagons. Given that much of the built heritage is no longer present, the telling of the story leaned heavily on archive images and a documentary by John Elliott on behalf of Open House Limerick. John specialises in the medieval history, architecture, and archaeology of Limerick City and frequently leads historical walking tours and public talks. These events often cover the medieval streetscapes, Irish Town, the canal district, and the Williamite sieges of Limerick for organisations like Open House Limerick and the Limerick Civic Trust
Tourists, walkers and cyclists regularly traverse the area to the front of the Absolute Hotel; it was an important part of our pitch that the mural be engaging to everyone - telling the story of a nearly forgotten part of the city.
The arrow on the left of the mural pointing right directs traffic and is a strong wayfinding design component.
The measure of the projects success has been the amount of postive engagement both from local people and hotel guests.
The Process : One of our company’s strengths lies in the ability to build a good collaborative strategy; when projects are multidisciplinary like the Absolute Hotel jobs, each team member is important, and good communication and scheduling is key to project success.
Research-based storytelling.
Acquiring permissions from Open House Limerick, the National Library of Ireland & Sean Curtin to use selected images.
Designing components to give an aesthetically interesting mural while working with a significant falling gradient from the start to the end of the graphic.
Printing to di bond heavy duty aluminium sheets and finishing with anti graffiti over laminate.
Installing the pre cut panels on site.
Absolute Hotel, Indoor Mural
Images of before, inspiration and finished indoor mural.
Left to right : Dermot Long, Studio GBM. Jane Hogan, Artist. Donnacha Hurley, Absolute Hotel.
The Client : Absolute Hotel
The Brief : Create an indoor mural at the entrance to the hotel from the car park.
Our Solution : Reimagine and rescale a drawing by artist Jane Hogan which the hotel had commissioned for branded giftware. Because of the location, a warm welcome as Gaeilge seemed fitting.
Design components to give an aesthetically interesting mural.
Print to Antalis Coala heavy duty 350grm non-woven wallcovering.
Reskim the plaster wall & install the pre cut wallpaper drops on site.
Our Thanks goes to Donnacha Hurley, then GM of the Absolute Hotel, now CEO of Limerick Chamber, and his team for their belief in both concepts, Sean Curtin for the 1950’s images of the canal, OpenHouse Limerick for permission to use their canal district video, artist Jane Hogan for her skill on the indoor artwork, our inhouse Research & Design team for their vision and hard work, and our Installation Team who did an amazing job as always - particulary on the challenging outdoor mural.
