June 15th, early morning at our COBE Office.
After a two month lockdown, everyone’s back to work and in for a big surprise. The white canvas that's overlooking the whole office magically transformed into a colorful mural, expressing one of COBE’s main core values - teamwork.
The idea for the mural came to us a few months back, but once everyone started to work from home, we decided to turn that idea into reality. The main goal was to finish it by the time quarantine was over.
The four-week transformation consisted of drawing sketches on an iPad, transferring those sketches onto the canvas, mixing 50 shades of red, turquoise and yellow, and then transferring those colors onto the canvas. But it all paid off in the end because our COBE vision came to life.
‘’Illustration allows you to create a world as the brand sees it”.
Before we start to talk about the process, let's rewind a couple of months back.
For those who don’t know, we work in an open space office, and since the beginning of time, the wall that’s overlooking our office has a giant, white canvas attached to it. We covered it up from time to time, but always had bigger plans for it. Fast forward to March this year, when we decided to make a mural out of it. It was the perfect timing too, considering everyone just started working from home. Plus, we had the right person to do it - Darija, our UX/UI designer with a passion for illustrating.
First, we sat down to discuss our brand, ideas, and everything we want the mural to portray. Then, we developed the story we want to tell. And honestly, Darija couldn’t be happier that one of her first projects for COBE, was to paint the biggest mural she had ever done:
All three versions were so good we wanted to move to a bigger office where we could put them all up. But then we started thinking rationally again and decided on the playful Teamwork scene. At least for now. 😅
As being a team player is one of our core values, it seemed like the most logical option to go with:
After figuring out every little detail, Darija could finally start the magical process of painting the mural:
Or just take a look at the pics:
There were quiet, relaxing days, listening to Black Pumas, singing and painting, as well as some more adventurous ones:
Only a few of us were involved in the process of creating the mural, so you can imagine how everyone else reacted when they got back to the office. But honestly, seeing the mural in person for the first time felt like a big surprise for us too. It’s one thing to see it on your MacBook, and a whole other to see it in person:
Even video calls with partners and clients are different now, everyone's instant reaction is “Wow”. Plus, the mural is a great icebreaker when pitching new projects. First we talk art, then we talk business. 😎
Seeing how happy the mural made our team, inspired us for even bigger things. But more on that later. Stay tuned.