Bri’s murals are
a Zizzi success

UCA students are continuing to make their unique mark on Italian restaurant chain, Zizzi, with yet another branch getting a mural makeover.

13 Nov 2023

Picture by Tony Buckingham

Bri Chartrand, a third-year UCA Illustration student, has transformed two huge wall spaces on the newly refurbished Maidstone branch of Zizzi, using a select colour palette in a design inspired by the local area. It’s the second time this year that UCA students have put their talents to the test, after Ruth Blacklock and Izzy Barrett transformed Zizzi in Farnham.

Bri gained her opportunity after being shortlisted for another competition run by the chain to design a winter menu. They reached out instead to ask if she would be interested in designing two walls of the Maidstone restaurant and, following a meeting with the project manager at Zizzi headquarters, she had six days to complete the work. The murals are filled with local references, such as a nearby safari park and vineyard.

“I think my favourite part was the freedom that came with designing the final idea,” she says. “The only prompts were having a colour palette and focusing on the town of Maidstone. Their brief was really to be playful, make it fun and make it about the town. It was a nice challenge to remember all of that and then make something that people would like.”

New to mural work, Izzy quickly found that having to work while stood on a ladder, working with large paint cans, and having to use her right hand as well as her usual left hand to reach some of the areas she needed to paint, were all new challenges.

“It was fun all the same,” she says. “Having done this project, I think it’s a career path I’d like to go down. I’ve always wanted to find an art job specifically that allows me to travel, and this would do that for me. Plus, it’s quite physical; it requires your whole body.”

She has two mural projects coming up – including another one for Zizzi in the new year, in Paddington, London.

“The feedback so far has been really positive and rewarding,” she said. “If I had any advice for future students, it would definitely be never to say no to an opportunity, because you never know where it could take you – just looked what’s happened for me!”

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