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By Ella Rue

In August of 2021 New Jersey City University (NJCU) opened its satellite campus in Fort Monmouth, in Monmouth County, New Jersey to expand bachelor’s and master’s degree offerings along the Jersey Shore, and now offer the only affordable four-year programs in that area. NJCU@Fort Monmouth serves Ocean, Monmouth, Mercer, and Middlesex counties.

The new location was once a historic former army base, which closed in 2011. As the educational partner in revitalizing the Fort, which included private and government funding, NJCU is proud to now occupy Squier Hall—formerly the home of the Signal Corps. The building has been renovated from its origins as a 1935-era administrative building to become a state-of-the-art facility featuring 15 classrooms, a nursing education center, a cybersecurity computer lab, and offices for faculty and staff in a 72,000-square-foot building located on more than 22 acres.

With this project came branding challenges. 72,000 square feet of a blank canvas.

Dean Michael Edmondson approached me last semester to discuss designing and producing way-finding signage as well as branding the building, making students and visitors feel welcome.

Dean Edmondson wanted to be certain all four counties felt as if they were important entities within NJCU@Fort Monmouth. I offered the idea of four murals, one depicting each county. The style would be reminiscent of the iconic “Welcome to Asbury Park” postcards, as Asbury Park is a prominent city within Monmouth County.

I then assigned this to Renee Ramos, a very talented co-op student in our office.

Monmouth County thumbnails

What were the size of each mural? And have you ever worked on a design job of this magnitude before?

Renee:
The sizes for the Fort Monmouth Murals were 178" x 45", as they would be displayed above five classrooms. Before the Fort Monmouth Mural Project, I had experience working with traditional mural art through the Jersey City Mural Arts Youth Program. But this was the first time I would be tasked with a large project that not only included word art and graphic design but illustrated landscapes within each letter. I could not comprehend the size of these murals while I was working on the artwork digitally. Still, as I put the murals together and mocked up my designs above the classrooms, it felt surreal that my work would be printed and displayed at such a grand scale. Compared to all of my other projects, I have never worked on a design job as big as this one before.

Mercer County thumbnails

Please explain the process you used to plan this project.

Renee:
When I started to plan the Fort Monmouth murals, I approached the project as I would my other illustrations. I began researching the different counties, using the guidelines and specs given. Each county required diverse landscapes as they are recognized for various tourist attractions, nature, and architecture. For example, Monmouth County is known for Asbury Park, the boardwalks, and military forts near its beaches. Of course, these landscapes would follow the image of Squire Hall, which was my first illustration. My references were found in many places, including county websites, Google maps, and tourist brochures. To start my sketches, I separated my files by county; Mercer, Monmouth, Middlesex, and Ocean Counties. I made sure each landscape reflected the county I was illustrating. I took these references and started sketching the landscapes individually before moving on to the word art. Simple, black-and-white sketches conveyed my ideas and placement so the client could see my vision.

I knew how to paint and draw, but some software programs were still new. After finishing the landscapes, I was challenged to work on three-dimensional letters. I spent an afternoon teaching myself how to create word art and managed to mock-up my landscapes in what would become the final murals.

Ocean County thumbnails

What software do you use to create these? And please explain your process? Do you manipulate photos or use them solely for reference?

Renee:
I created the Fort Monmouth murals using Procreate, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop.

Procreate is a drawing app that I use on my iPad Pro, where I work on most of my illustration projects and commissions. I used this program along with Illustrator to create the landscapes. The references varied in image quality but provided enough information I needed to complete the digital paintings. I started by using Adobe Illustrator and reducing my reference to its basic shapes and colors, creating a vector base. Each landscape was approached with different techniques. I used rectangle tools and gradients to render the buildings; this technique is used in the Squire Hall illustration and the Performing Arts Center in Middlesex. When it came to natural landscapes, I approached the artwork in a more impressionistic manner to achieve a more natural look. Most of the landscapes lacked the color and nature that I wanted. I took the initiative to enhance my original reference by saturating my painting’s colors and adding more foliage and brighter and bluer skies. After all, as an illustrator, I can make the landscape more lively compared to the original reference. Not only will this serve to make a more successful individual painting, but it makes the whole mural pop with color.

After creating the landscapes, I used Adobe Illustrator to make the word art for the murals. I could change the colors, add gradients, and bend them to achieve that vintage postcard aesthetic. It starts with using the text tool and a bold font. For this project, I used Futura Extrabold and reduced the kerning between the letters. After this, I created outlines and reduced the text into a shape which I then turned into three-dimensional word art. Finally, I changed the colors of each side of the art to create the illusion of light and depth.

I used Adobe Photoshop to put the compositions together, manipulating the artwork with filters and revising any misplaced colors. Putting the murals together was like putting together a puzzle. I had thirty-four digital paintings and four different county word arts to decorate, including a Welcome sign. The added challenge was moving the landscapes around to fit within the letters that would not obscure any essential features that I felt was important to show.

When I showed this project to my peers most did not believe these landscapes were paintings. With the distance that the murals will be viewed from, I think people won’t see all the brush strokes and creative decisions I made during the process. Behind each letter is a complete rendered painting.

Middlesex County thumbnails

What were some of the challenges you experienced with this project?

Renee:
I faced challenges during this project that I had no way of anticipating. As mentioned earlier, I needed to learn how to create word art within an afternoon to start the project. I was only familiar with painting and drawing and some graphic design, so delving into the many functions of Adobe Illustrator was one of the first challenges I faced. The second challenge was streamlining landscape paintings. I wanted to achieve a painterly postcard look within a short time. Each landscape was an experiment, and timing was crucial. There was a science behind producing every painting and the time needed to render them. For instance, if I wanted to complete Mercer County by Friday, I needed to schedule myself to work on two nature landscapes and one building. As impressionist landscapes took less time for me to produce than the very structural buildings featured in the murals. The final challenges were technical issues, but I managed to save my files and prepare them to be produced and installed.

What did you learn/gain from this experience?

Renee:
I gained a great deal of experience because I was faced with the magnitude of this project and the need to learn different techniques to achieve the final product. If I did not know how to do something, I would take the time to learn how. I spent a lot of time making sure that everything looked perfect because, at the end of the day, the files I had on my laptop would be blown up to 178" x 45" and seen by everyone. This project taught me new techniques to approach illustration and how I could use other programs like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to enhance the paintings I make on Procreate. In the end, it taught me how to handle projects as of this magnitude while also maintaining my school and other co-op work. This was a lifetime opportunity in my college career, and I can only grow as an illustrator from here. Hopefully, at some point, I can find the time to view these murals up close after they are installed. Again, it is surreal to see how far my work has come since entering New Jersey City University.