The Refinery Hotel is slated to debut in early 2013 and is centrally located in Midtown Manhattan, nestled between Herald Square and Bryant Park. We helped the hotel announce its arrival with a handsome, hand painted and classic black and white sign. Once we properly prepped the brick wall, the mural was completed within 4 days right before the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade was set to march down the Avenue of Americas and right past it.

On this busy NYC corner of the East Village, we painted a striking graphic mural to promote the premiere of the new action series on Cinemax, called ‘Banshee’. Our painters blended in the various colors’ gradients and implemented the distressed qualities that the colorful artwork called for. The maker of this show is also the creator of ‘True Blood’, and similar to that story and in this mural, a lovely background becomes a bloody foreground.

Cole Haan hired Overall Murals to paint two large vinyl billboards, each 30′ x 30′ feet. Due to the fact that printing on vinyl cannot achieve the desired neon and silver metallic colors, hand painting with enamel was the best option to properly present these bright slogans.

The first piece was created for the shoe brand’s fall campaign and was specially illuminated by black light, similar to the gate’s campaign we executed. The second piece is currently on display for the winter holiday campaign and further decorated by ornamental silver “eye-catchers”. Both were hung in SoHo on Lafayette and Kenmare streets.

Overall Murals hand painted these two walls on a corner building in one of the busiest parts of Chinatown/Littly Italy off of Canal Street. The mural is for Bethesda video games’ new release, Dishonored, coming out in October. Just as we finished up, the completion coincided with the beginning of the historic and jam packed San Gennaro Feast, taking place below it on Mulberry St.

Daily, throughout the hand painting process, locals and tourists alike marveled at the paintings’ quick progression and gave us constant kudos on the final pieces. The artwork, saturated with loads of detail, was completed in only a handful of days with two rigs and four sign painters.

Final photos and close ups without the ropes to be added soon.

On over 20 sites and in less than 2 weeks, across Manhattan and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Overall Murals hand painted various messages for part of the Cole Haan Shoes‘ #DontGoHome campaign. These messages gave convincing reasons as to why a New Yorker should not be turning in early and to make the most of their night. “You didn’t move to NYC to stay in” or “You can sleep when you’re dead” were just a couple among the many different words of advice.

Most of the artwork had to be hand painted after sunset and up until sunrise, coinciding with New York’s crazy nightlife, (which we learned doesn’t take a break, not even for a Tuesday). Our painters really did feel like they weren’t going to be going home and made a lot of new friends in the process.

The colors used are the brightest fluorescent day glow colors we could find and were applied onto storefront gates with uneven surfaces. These gates fit for nightlife targeting because they are down only in the evening. The messages are further illuminated by a large black light to really capture attention. To us, each gate looked like its own small club.

While the murals were up, between September to October, the outdoor campaign successfully crossed into the digital realm. For example, the #DontGoHome hashtag was tagged in over 3k instagram photos and 3k tweets. Additionally, it’s accredited with helping to generate over 100k new Facebook likes for the brand’s page.

Superga, a 100-year-old Italian shoe brand, has been brought to the US by Steve Madden. Overall Murals painted a classic sign to introduce the classic sneaker to New Yorkers. Located on a landmark building within the Meat Packing district, less than a block away from the High Line and Gaansevoort St.’s high end restaurants, bars and shops, this sign will surely be viewed by the many stylish patrons of this neighborhood.

Corona Familiar comes in a generous 32 oz. bottle and is the perfect solution to a NYC summer day. We painted these large beers on two street level walls in Brooklyn for Familiar’s summer campaign. One of the art pieces can be found in the heart of Williamsburg at North 7th and Bedford; while the most detailed mural is at the edge of Greenpoint, which meets Williamsburg. Due to the silkscreen look through half tone separated colors, the creative was a bit more complicated than usual. However, the hand cramps caused by brushing on the thousands of lines were worth it to give both the desired look and that hand painted touch.

Architects are the best type of people to create a sign for – they understand design and the importance of layout. New York Design Architects who also specialize in zoning consulting and permit expediting, hired the fifty years plus old company, Concord Painting, for the illuminated sign project on their office. Concord is a long time partner of ours and rigged the job. They, in turn, enlisted us to execute the dead flat black and white color schemed sign on the side of this landmark building in Tribeca.

One of the most well-known, young contemporary artists in today’s world is Kehinde Wiley. Inspired by his painted portraits of urban youth met while visiting Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Lod, as well as Wiley’s signature use of deeply saturated color and detail, The Jewish Museum and agency, Our Man In Havana, elected to use a promotional effort that is very new to them. Overall Murals was chosen to hand paint the reproduction of Wiley’s art piece, entitled “Alios Itzhak”, onto a medium size wallscape in a high traffic location. After several weeks of location scouting, and back and forth feedback with the client, we found a variety of walls and ultimately narrowed it down to the choice spot at E. Houston and Mott Streets.

Unlike most outdoor signs, which are often designed to be as straight forward as possible, this artwork was complex – requiring nearly 80 different colors to be pre-mixed. Coincidentally scheduled to start during a major arts week in NYC, the artwork was executed within a week, on a hanging scaffold above bumper to bumper crosstown traffic and passersby made up of wandering gawkers and tourists.

The mural continues to generate tons of press and buzz on social networks including: Complex, 12 oz. Prophet, The Art Newspaper, Wall Street Journal, The Source, and Associated Press.

The original painting was acquired for The Jewish Museum’s permanent collection and as such is one of the key pieces in the exhibition. It’s a nine-foot tall portrait of a young Jewish Ethiopian-Israeli man enveloped by an ornate background based on a traditional Jewish papercut, which is incidentally a part of the museum’s collection. The hand-carved wooden frame was customized for the painting with symbols of Jewish tradition: hands of a Kohen (priest) and the Lion of Judah, symbolizing blessing, power, and majesty.

The downtown wallscape’s success will be measured by the new audiences who visit the uptown museum for Kehinde Wiley’s show, beginning March 9th and ends July 29th. Fourteen of the paintings in the artist’s new series on view are being displayed in New York City for the first time.

Making of the Wallscape:

The Whitney Museum’s 2012 Biennial kicked off March 1st, and through Overall Murals we integrated the only two hand painted ads in the institution’s promotional campaign.

Whitney’s graphic design department adjusted the art pieces and added the essential event information to display in the West Village and next to Williamsburg’s artsy area of Bedford Ave. Within three days, the still of a boxer from a film by Frederick Wiseman was replicated to temporarily adorn Bleecker Street. In another handful of days, an image taken inside the museum itself by Gregory Holm, with its extremely detailed ceiling and lighting patterns, was hand painted adjacent to the constantly busy Bedford Ave. subway station.

Due to the fact we have not missed the last three Biennials (and most definitely won’t miss this one), it was an honor to paint these murals based on actual photographs from the exhibition.