I’ve been working at Overall Murals for just over 3 years now and it’s been nothing short of awesome. I love the people, I love the process, & I love the product. When I explain what we do – create hand painted advertising murals on the sides of buildings, the reaction is almost always: “WOW – that’s dope!” (from friends) or “WOW – that’s amazing – love it” (from industry professionals), to which I nod my head and agree, yep it is. Even when prospective clients aren’t buying hand paints as a format in their OOH mix, they always seem to express how much they love hand paints and hope to have a campaign that we can work together on soon.
I recently started thinking about the WHY. Why does everyone love and appreciate hand painted murals so much? It’s got to be more than just the beauty, vibrancy, and spectacle of the process and finished product, right? More than the fact that anything artisanal, organic and artsy gets a lot of love on ‘the gram’, right? Perhaps it’s also the artistry, talent, craftsmanship and creativity behind it all…
Out-of-Home industry leader, artist, & philosopher Rick Robinson writes, in his 2013 publication of The People’s Space, that hand paints are “the magic of OOH” and “an organic medium that speaks to our soul.” Whoa, that’s powerful stuff right there, sounds like the secret sauce that advertisers would love to get their hands on. But back to the WHY…could it be something in our collective DNA? Science now tells us that humans have been hand crafting signs for the past 75,000 years now, so there must be something instinctive that beckons our attention and compels our minds to absorb the messaging being delivered through hand painted signs. I think everyone can agree that a handwritten thank you note carries a little more endearment than a text message or an email. In that same regard, hand painted signs cut through digital clutter of our increasingly pixelated lives.
After reflecting on this further, I think it really comes down to LOVE – love is the x-factor here. When human hands are involved the love is amplified – pure and wholesome LOVE. Our talented painters love painting, they put their heart and soul into every job. Their lives are literally on the line as they often dangle hundreds of feet in the air, with acute attention and focused presence, completely absorbed in the present moment! There’s a lot of LOVE when you’re living in the moment, so it’s only natural that the same energy being put into the mural is radiating back out to the people seeing the murals. Good advertising is all about connection and when that connection is made with LOVE, then that’s a solid connection. After all, love is the most powerful thing in the world and that my friends, is the POWER OF HAND PAINTS.
For all you advertising gurus out there putting together your OOH marketing budgets for 2021, be sure to earmark some significant dollars for some good ole fashioned HAND PAINTED LOVE and let’s make your brand shine, while also making this world a better place.
