From Bare Walls to a School Children Could Experience
When Dosti Foundation School was newly built, the space was ready, but it didn’t really feel like a school yet. Most of the walls were white, the flooring was grey, and the corridors had visible fire pipes and long stretches of empty walls. Everything was functional, but for a school meant for children, the space felt a little too plain.The brief was simple: make the school feel more colourful, welcoming and playful before the students arrived. But we didn’t want to simply put cartoons on every wall. We wanted the walls to become a part of the children’s experience.
One School, Different Stories
The project covered two floors of corridors, the library and an activity area near the entrance. Instead of treating every wall as a separate project, we looked at the school as one complete space.Different corridors were given different themes, but we kept the same style of illustrations, colours and characters throughout the school. This helped each area feel different while still making the school feel connected.For the younger students, we kept the characters simple and expressive. Since the artwork needed to be visible from a distance, we avoided too many small details and focused on clear shapes and expressions. We also added small learning elements like letters and numbers wherever they made sense.The idea wasn’t to turn the corridors into classrooms. It was simply to make learning a part of the environment that children could come across naturally every day.
The Main Corridor Takes Flight
One of the longest corridors was turned into a flying biplane scene. Three vintage-style biplanes move across the wall, each with its own number and animal characters.We also added smaller details around them, like a rabbit riding on one of the wings and a bear waving from the ground. The motion lines behind the planes were important because they helped carry the artwork across the long wall.A corridor that was previously long and empty now felt much more active and interesting.
An Alphabet Rollercoaster
Further down the corridor, we continued the theme with an amusement-park inspired wall. A rollercoaster carries five animal characters: a crocodile, bear, cat, squirrel and eagle. Each carriage is labelled from A to E.It’s a simple detail, but it works because the learning element doesn’t feel forced. Children can become familiar with the letters simply by seeing them as they walk through the school.This was something we tried to do throughout the project. Whenever we could add something educational naturally, we did, without making the artwork look like a traditional teaching board.
A Small Game at the Entrance
The entrance gave us a different opportunity. Instead of creating another large mural, we created a small interactive concept called “Spot the Animals.”A monkey hides among the branches of a tree. A deer peeks through the bushes, and a toucan can be seen partly hidden in the background.It’s a simple idea, but that’s what makes it work. Children waiting at the entrance or being dropped off can spend a few moments looking at the wall and finding the different animals.Instead of being just another empty wall, it gives children something to notice and interact with.
The Library Needed a Different Approach
The library was different from the rest of the school. We didn’t want to continue the colourful cartoon style here because a library needs to feel quieter and calmer, so we created six black-and-white illustrated portraits of influential thinkers and leaders—Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Jobs, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Aristotle and Nelson Mandela—each paired with a short quote related to education. The black-and-white treatment gives the library a calmer feel, while the portraits add a sense of curiosity and inspiration, creating a clear change in mood as students move from the colourful corridors into the library.
Designing Around the Building
When you’re designing for an existing space, you rarely get completely empty walls. There were fire alarms, switchboards, vents, door frames and other functional elements across the school.Instead of treating these as obstacles, we designed around them. The artwork was planned in a way that worked with the existing architecture, so these elements didn’t look completely separate from the murals.It may seem like a small detail, but it makes a big difference in the final space. The graphics feel like they belong to the building rather than simply being something placed on the walls.
What the Walls Changed
The result wasn’t just a more colourful school.Each corridor now has its own identity. The alphabet rollercoaster brings letters into the everyday environment. The entrance gives children something to discover. And the library has its own quieter visual style.Most importantly, the walls now add something to the experience of the school. They give children things to look at, recognise, discover and talk about.And that was the main objective of the Dosti Foundation School project. We didn’t want to decorate every empty wall just for the sake of filling space. We wanted to make the walls feel like they belonged to the children who would use the school every day.
Creating Better Learning Environments Through Design
At Mockingbird Studios, we believe school branding can be more than just putting a logo on a wall. The space itself can communicate the personality of a school, support learning and influence how students experience it every day.The Dosti Foundation School project was a good example of this approach. Different spaces had different themes and moods, but they all came together as one connected visual story.A blank wall doesn’t always have to stay a blank wall. Sometimes, it can become the beginning of a story.