When Your Work Becomes the Art: Inside Mariani Design Studio
The walls inside Mariani Design Studio could have been filled with just about anything. Instead, Mariani chose something that already belonged there: the landscapes they had designed, the projects they had built, and most importantly….the people behind them.
For their Lake Forest, Illinois studio, that meant thinking beyond a single type of artwork or display. Photographs needed to work across very different spaces and at very different scales, from individual acrylic pieces to a nearly 25-foot-wide wall mural. Our job was to help Mariani take a folder full of project photography and turn it into an environment that felt unmistakably theirs.
FINDING THE RIGHT IMAGE FOR THE RIGHT WALL
Mariani came to us with a collection of photos and ideas about where they wanted artwork throughout the studio. From there, the project became a collaborative exercise in matching each image to the space where it could work best.
Some photographs made sense as individual pieces, while others had the composition and resolution to take over an entire wall. We worked through Mariani’s image library with their team, selecting photographs for each space and material, determining scale and placement, and preparing the files for production.
The subject matter did much of the storytelling for us. These weren’t generic images of gardens chosen because they complemented the interiors. They were Mariani projects and Mariani people.
That meant the finished artwork could do more than make the office look good. A visiting client could see the kind of work Mariani creates while standing inside the place where that work is designed.
ONE IMAGE LIBRARY, SEVERAL WAYS TO DISPLAY IT
Using several approaches to custom office artwork throughout the studio kept a large collection of photography from feeling repetitive.
For some areas, we produced modern acrylic sandwich frames ranging from approximately 28 x 25 inches to 36 x 46 inches. Elsewhere, photographs were printed on Sintra in smaller sizes to some that spanned 105 x 36 inches. More traditionally framed oversized photographs added another material and presentation style to the mix.
We also fabricated the Mariani Design Studio entrance sign, carrying the visual experience into the identification of the space itself.
Rather than forcing every photograph into the same treatment, each display could respond to the architecture around it while still belonging to the same larger collection.
When the photograph becomes the Room
Then there were the walls where a regular piece of art simply wasn’t big enough.
For those spaces, we took the same project photography and moved into large-format vinyl wall murals. One mural spans approximately 24 1/2′ x 12′, turning an office wall into an immersive garden scene. Another image fills the end of a hallway with a glowing greenhouse image, while additional murals bring pathways, gardens, and dense greenery into other areas of the studio.
At that scale, the image stops reading simply as artwork on a wall. The edge of the architecture becomes the edge of the photograph.
That was especially important in a space dedicated to landscape design. Instead of separating Mariani’s work from the studio where clients come to discuss it, the imagery brings those finished environments inside.
FROM IMAGE FOLDER TO FINISHED SPACE
Our involvement continued through every stage of the project. We prepared and scaled the files for each application, produced the murals and printed pieces, fabricated the framing and signage, and installed the work throughout the studio.
Today, the finished displays appear in offices, hallways, workspaces, gathering areas, and focal walls across Mariani Design Studio. Some are meant to be viewed up close, while others can be seen from across the room. Together, they bring Mariani’s people, projects, and landscapes into the environment where new ideas are taking shape.
Creating a cohesive space doesn’t mean every piece of artwork has to look the same. The connection can come from the story the art tells. Here, framed photography, acrylic displays, printed panels, and full-wall murals all take different forms while still feeling like parts of the same whole. Sometimes the strongest thread running through a space isn’t a matching frame or material. It’s a story told in different ways from one wall to the next.
