A while back, SolarPower Europe contacted me to do a mural painting team building at their yearly offsite event. They have been working on their key values while growing from a small team to nearly 60 people and wanted a way to visualise the most important concepts to finalise this process. They knew they wanted to do something at their offsite outside of Brussels, so I transformed my usual office wall painting activity into an “out of office” experience. 

Snapshot

Participants: 50

Mural size: 1,60 x 5,40 m

Outcome: Visualising the key values of SPE and painting a huge collaborative mural that now hangs in their office

Phase one: Gathering information and creating the illustration

First I came to the SPE office and we selected the right wall for the mural. Then the team filled out my questionnaire about their company culture and we also had a few of them sit down with me to clarify a few things. I was interested to learn about their goals, their vision, how they work together and the “vibes” at work. Based on the information that came up, I created a draft illustration where I included things that had a particular meaning to the team, such as Captain Solar, or images that invoke their culture, or one really fun team offsite where they all jumped into the pool. The final illustration then got approved by the team and we were ready for phase two.

Phase two: Preparing the canvases and painting together

Phase two included a lot of background work on my part, because I had to apply the digital illustration onto 80 x 60 cm canvases (18 in total) that would together form the final mural. On the day of the team building event, I arrived early in the morning to Malmedy. I set up the canvases and painting materials at the venue and then we started the painting. The participants formed small groups of 3-4 people and painted the canvases for about 2 hours. When everyone was done, they put together the huge mural on the floor, figuring out what goes where, just like a giant puzzle. Then we added the outlines in black, and boom, the mural was ready. People were amazed to see the little details depicting the values and culture that have been guiding their work. I was very proud to see how much they appreciated the process and the final outcome.

Phase three: hanging up the mural

After the mural got transported back to Brussels, I went to the office and hung up the mural on a Sunday, to greet the team the next day. It turned out to be massive, and hopefully will inspire SolarPower Europe for a long time to come.