Dropbox mural by New York graphic designers Aaron Robbs and Alex Proba

A Tech-Office Mural is the Ultimate Canvas for These Graphic Designers

By now, the large-scale mural has become something of a familiar, de rigueur decoration for tech HQs — the past few years have seen everything from Trek Matthews for Dolby Labs, to Serena Mitnik-Miller for Facebook, Ian Ross for Lyft, Camille Walala (also for Facebook) and more. But this latest might be our favorite yet: Commissioned for Dropbox’s 26,000-square-foot Flatiron office in New York, the mural we’re featuring today is a collaboration between New York graphic designers and former Kickstarter co-workers Aaron Robbs and Alex Proba of Studio Proba. When Robbs, who currently works in the design department at Dropbox, was ask to create this massive mural, he turned to Proba (who’s recently proven herself the ultimate collaborator) to help him make magic.

“I wanted it to feel unique to New York City,” explains Robbs. “As a jumping-off point I took inspiration from the walls that surround building sites all over the city, the posters in the subways, flyer-covered telephone poles, and the general patina that is pervasive throughout Manhattan. Specifically I was interested in the rips, tears and gaps in the posters that revealed more posters underneath. The randomness of the tear lines often reveal beautiful unintentional moments. This idea of layering lent itself well to collaboration. I thought it would be a  great opportunity to work with my friend and former coworker Alex Proba. The idea was that each of us would design a version of the full mural. Upon completion we overlaid our designs and started erasing out areas of each of our compositions to reveal parts of the other.”

The results are beautiful — an on-trend color palette, an embrace of imperfection, and detailed close-ups so good that Robbs and Proba decided to make them into prints, available for sale on each of their online shops. Keep scrolling for a peek at the finished mural, a glimpse at the process, and the resulting posters.

PHOTOS BY JULIA ROBBS

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Inspiration Photos

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Posters for Sale

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