By Molly Hanzidiakou
Students and visitors of Algonquin will notice a change to the lobby in C-building over the next few weeks. What was once the area of the First Cup & Deli, will now be a location for people to gather due to new extended seating and two murals being put up.
“We’re finalizing the creative right now and we’re getting the approval,” said Natalie Larocque, project manager of the environmental graphics throughout all three campuses. “So it should be completed by the end of November.”
Larocque and her team of designers, painters and suppliers have been working on projects similar to this one throughout each Ottawa, Perth and Pembroke campus. The environmental graphic project started at the end of school last year and carried on throughout the summer.
Sally Enright was hired to assist Larocque. Enright arranges meetings with the departments and coordinating the environmental graphic process.
“We have been doing this all over the school,” said Enright. “Algonquin College changed its branding and it has been almost a couple of years now since the change. What we’re trying to do is enhance the brand image around the college and create a welcoming environment for students and visitors.”
The two murals will focus on the centre for organizational learning which is located at the far end of the lobby. Friendly faces shown through photos taken around campus will be accompanied by inspirational quotes leading to the entrance of the centre.
“This will represent student life,” said Enright. “One mural is going to be on the long light green wall that is quite bare now and the other will be on the angled wall towards the end of the hallway.”
Throughout the year, Students’ Association takes pictures around campus. These photos are shared with the marketing department, so Larcoque and her team have many pictures to choose from for the graphics.
The vinyl and paint mural combinations are different for each specific school but all share an original concept.
“Most of the murals have been created for specific schools so far. The school of business, school of media and design and so on and so forth,” said Enright.
The graphics are designed for each department. The designers work with the certain department to translate their vision of what they would like to see into an environmental graphic.
“We will build the graphics for the lobby of C-building and then we’ll keep moving onto other projects and other places where we are able to come up with the environmental graphics for,” said Enright.