No longer is a kid with a can of spray paint considered bad for business.
These days, entrepreneurs and corporate brands alike are hiring graffiti or “spray” artists to bring colour – and clients – to their storefronts.
Take Jennifer Able, for example.
The owner of Made – a small fashion boutique on Main Street in Vancouver – recently hired local spray artist Kris Kupskay of Blindfold Murals to create an original painting for her display window.
“The things I sell in my store are unique and edgy; I wanted to make the outside reflect that in a way,” she said. “So far it’s been amazing. The piece went up last week and lots of people have come in to ask about it. It’s a conversation starter, which is what I wanted.”
Although the spray-on-canvas piece Kupskay created for Made isn’t necessarily (in this case) permanent, Able has no plans to remove it from her street-facing window any time soon.
“I don’t know why I’d want to do that,” she told Business in Vancouver. “It gets people stopping and talking … it’s definitely been good for business.”
According to Kupskay, business for him has been good, too.
“It usually comes from word of mouth. People will see my work and ask who did it, and I’ll get a referral that way,” he explained, pointing to other murals he has created for Lower Mainland businesses, including a 50-foot-long-by-10-foot-high exterior for Dance FX studio in Maple Ridge, a DJ-and-disco-ball-themed wall for Douglas College and an animal-inspired mural for a Bosley’s Pet Food Plus location.
“It’s been cool seeing the different types of stores that are coming over to this concept lately – they really vary in terms of business types and customer demographics,” he said. “Everyone has their own reason for wanting to put a mural up, and the cost ranges based on size and detail, but what I hear in terms of feedback is always positive. It brings more customers to the store, every time.”
It’s not just small business benefiting from the trend. This summer Lululemon Athletica’s flagship store on West Fourth Avenue got a makeover courtesy of Kupskay, who teamed up with the yogawear giant’s graphic designer Beverley Wong.
“[Lululemon founder] Chip Wilson wanted to give the store a facelift,” Wong said. “The side wall [measuring approximately 80 feet wide by eight feet high] gave us a really good opportunity not only to do that but also to create an art piece everyone could enjoy.”
She said her whimsical “Pure Kits” design – complete with dance- and yoga-inspired dips and swirls – was inspired by a mandate to make the mural “hippie but not trippy.”
“Our goal was to fit into the neighbourhood without blending into the background,” Wong said. “We chose a theme that worked with our manifesto, but at the same time . . . we really wanted to ‘pop out’ from the scene and make people notice.”
Kupskay, who’s worked on past Lululemon campaigns with Wong, was the perfect candidate to bring the wall to life. The result? A mural that breathes new colour into Kitsilano and at the same time incorporates and maintains the company’s unique brand of positive messaging: dance, sing, floss, travel and, of course, do yoga.
“People really enjoy seeing something different, not just a cookie-cutter store,” added Cory Bayers, Lululemon’s brand manager. “Customers want to feel connected. We’re always trying to build a better relationship with them, as well as with our communities. Artwork, like this mural, helps strengthen those relationships. You could say it’s the critical link between a store and the community.”
An emerging critical link between the business community and the oft-misunderstood world of graffiti is Mitch Wilson, whose Third Gallery and Productions on Homer Street provides a space where the public can come to appreciate graffiti art and artists can buy such supplies as professional-grade spray paint in a dizzying array of colours and 20 different types of caps or tips for spraying varying degrees of detail on a wall.
“I’m trying to be a portal or a catalyst for this art form to be legitimized and recognized,” Wilson said. “This is a subculture rising to the surface, like skateboarding, and within any community you need to have a business centre to back it up.”
For the 10 or so artists he represents, Wilson acts as a sort of agent, taking care of the business side of things so that they can get paid for their creativity.
“There are a lot of really talented guys out there who either don’t get the right kind of publicity or don’t know how to represent themselves properly,” he explained. “When it comes to doing corporate work, businesses need to see a certain level of professionalism in order to feel good about spending their money. I used to be in that world so I feel comfortable playing that role, preparing proposals and working out contracts. I know how to deal with both sides, so that the artist gets paid and the customer is happy.”
According to Wilson, “We’ve had a 100% success rate in the corporate work we’ve done [for clients like Holt Renfrew and the I Love Health Store, both in downtown Vancouver]. I love that I get to have a hand in promoting the idea that there are commercial and commissioned artists available for hire. We’re definitely out there squashing the stereotypes associated with spray paint.”