Summary (TL;DR)

Place a prominent Nouns mural for 2 years in a high-traffic Brooklyn location (across from Barclays Center) for ~16 ETH all-in cost. Muralist and building agreement already in place.

Motivation

Objective: Continue Nouns prominence through the placement of a semi-permanent installation of a Noun glasses + Nouns mural on behalf of the NounsDAO in Brooklyn, NY.

Inspiration: NFT murals have become social/shareable cultural icons. Placing a prominent Mural in the public eye continues to spotlight Nouns as a prominent cultural icon in culture.

Desired Outcomes:

1. Drive awareness of the Nouns among general population
2. Engage Nouns+ community in selection of Nouns to be placed (bid / partially fund mural project with your Noun included).

Specifications

Location: 432 Dean Street Brooklyn, NY

This location is in the heart of Brooklyn at the start of the Park Slope neighborhood but is at an important intersection point of 4 prominent Brooklyn neighborhoods: Boerum Hill, Park Slope, Fort Greene, and Prospect Heights.

It is immediately visible from 5th Avenue (a major cultural street of restaurants, retail, and bars). It is immediately across the street from Barclay’s Center (home of the Brooklyn Nets and former home of the New York Islanders) along with the Atlantic Train Terminal (Westernmost stop for the Long Island Railroad Atlantic Branch).

Atlantic Avenue is a major terminal with NY Subway trains 2,3,4,5,B,D,N,Q,R all run through.

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• Buildings are all decentrally owned so finding a pristine available real estate and a willing building manager / owner open to this is limited. I can get access to this location.
• Initial lease terms negotiated with a 2-year guarantee and option to extend a 3rd year.
• DAO is accountable if the mural is defaced (to correct it). So placement on the 2nd and 3rd floor is more ideal despite having a base image on the dark gray wall below. Note - no building defacement has happened in 3 years since the mural on the 1st floor was put up.
• DAO would need to find an artist to help support the effort and create a rendering.
• The building will need to see a rendering / pdf of the proposed mural before approval.

Artist: RoguePandas have secured a partnership with the talented local Brooklyn muralist Natasha Platt. She has agreed to a total fee of $15,000, which includes Photoshop designs that will be reviewed by NounsDAO and the building owner.

She has also agreed to mint a NFT to the DAO treasury if we want.

https://www.natashamayplatt.com/

Creative Desire: Promoting Nouns is primary. In addition to DAO logo and vinyl QR code inclusion, we would like a light surrounded by some of the work Natasha does. There may be an opportunity for people to bid different nouns to be included on the mural.

Success Conditions

• Mural placed in Brooklyn NY
  • 2-year agreement with building owner
  • Contract with talented street muralist (preferably female)
  • Mural artwork meets artistic standards of NounsDAO
• Promotion
  • At least 5 Twitter posts to promote the mural
  • At least 1 social media post by muralist
  • 1 blog post that highlights the mural and muralist
• Community: Ability to donate to fund the project for the inclusion of their Noun (up to 7 nouns included?).
• NFT
  • NFT to be minted by street muralist that will go into DAO treasury
• Rough Timeline
  • October 24: funding approved by DAO and agreement signed with building 1 day after
  • October 24: designs reviewed and approved by Prop.House
  • November TBD: mural painting begins
  • November TBD: mural complete

Costs

Proposed Budget: $17,500 USDC + 3 ETH (~16 ETH but building to be paid in USD and muralist in USDC)

• 3 ETH for RoguePandas lead (all execution) + inclusion of Noun436 on mural
• $2,400 placement fee for 2 years (would need USDC and RoguePandas to convert to fiat and pay building upfront)
• $15,000 USDC for a street muralist + materials + insurance + miscellaneous
  • Would need to include the all-in cost for production: paint, print of vinyl QR code (link to Nouns.WTF), electric lift, insurance, parking for the lift (Lead would help explore options), Insurance.
  • Commemorative NFT mint of the mural for DAO, Project Lead, Artist (series of 3)

Note: All the required agreements (artis, building, etc.) are already in place to do this.

Wow, this seems super reasonable. Do you have a design in mind to share? Also, to know the approximate size of the mural on the building would be cool. Just a simple outline on the picture you provided or an overlay of the actual image would be really awesome.

I’m not sure if it would be too much for NSFW, but I’m going to tag @noun22 just in case.

Awesome. It would be the light grey portion of the building left to right in the photo above, You can see people in the picture for rough perspective. I was thinking the artist would design a concept for the mural once we are approved. The building would need to approve it but definitely big Nouns glasses as the centerpiece (maybe in blue?) and then a few nouns peaking around with some colorful artistic touches. You can see Natasha’s portfolio here: Murals

Dang. That’s a huge mural then! The artist looks like they have some incredible work as well.

Yeah I think it would be a stunning one for sure!

I feel this is a very reasonable ask for 2 years.

However, due to the placement of the mural, I wonder especially since it is slightly inset if it will make a great enough impact as its face sit on a one-way street, but there is a light at the intersection, but when with both lanes open just a minimal amount of sitting traffic that can see the viewable side, so I think I would really need to see the design to know what type of impact it could make. (I am happy to photoshop them in the following pics to help me better see what kind of impact they would make)

432 Dean Street Brooklyn, NY (Floor 2,3 right side inset)

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Two Way Street (5th Avenue)

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One-way Street (Dean St), building on the right with flow of traffic

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One-way Street (Dean St), Pedestrian View against oncoming traffic building on the left

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Even with that all being said, I think for the cost of roughly ~$20ish bucks a day–not a bad spend.

I like the idea. Seems like a reasonable ask for 2 years and a good location. Have you thought at all about what the so-called Call to action might be? What would be on the mural to explain to people what this is, why they should care, help them remember it etc?

Sam - thank you for the feedback. The way I put in the ask was to get to get that whole wall, not just the right-side insert. I think we could do something really cool with visible Nouns on the left part of the wall that sticks out. Maybe even a “NounsDAO.wtf” URL on the bottom. And then we have the iconic glasses with more artistic elements on the part you’ve highlighted in pink. Since we would be soliciting the artist as a part of this it would also require her to come up with a photoshop interpretation ahead of painting.

Good call. Originally we were thinking about a QR code (vinyl) people could scan. Ideally this could be something we can change the programming over time. For now it could be Nouns.wtf (or we just route it there). Over time it could be a cool video about the project. Or it could be a dashboard with stats including the current live the auction homepage. I think adding in a QR code that we could change the link would be pretty rad.

Sam - really appreciate the pragmatic costing assessment. Also the additional screenshots give people better context on where the real estate is.

Thanks for the extra thoughts. I’ll just give you some thoughts from a brainstorming perspective to help you continue to strengthen the idea:

QR is interesting, but I’m not sure alone it’s really going to get a lot of play. Curious people sure, but seems like we are at a stage where something more explicit could be better. Also on the QR, I don’t really think nouns.wtf as a CTA is going to help most people. Just more confusion. Seems like soon you are going to have some options like an explainer video (I think by Conviction’s crew) and Nounish will have some intro stuff. I would suggest a QR go to one of those more accessible things for outsiders.

I think a short wording that is explanatory or memorable would increase Nouns awareness. I suspect Nouns will never have universal tagline to use, but for this…here’s just an off the cuff idea…What if along the bottom of the mural you had:

Nouns.wtf. Spreading good to the world. Full story → QR
(and QR went to explainer or Nounish video for the masses)
or just:
Nouns. Spreading good in the world. QR (i.e no .wtf, just Nouns)

Maybe not perfect but wanted to get the ideas out there for you to think about. Keep working!

I agree with you (on CTA and move away from QR). I was thinking about it more and since this is around cultural awareness, I think the nouns.wtf is needed somewhere. But I think the ultimate message should be the “One Noun, Every day, Forever.” - It is very on brand for the project and literally the best essence to describe it. I really like the push and agree the web link alone is not a CTA.

I think you have more than enough potential here to do an on-chain prop if this doesn’t move in the next week or so. I’d be more than happy to help get a vote from Nouncil to see if they’d be willing to put this on for you. Please keep us posted.

That is great. Thank you Andrew for the support. I would love to do an on-chain prop if we don’t have traction. And thank you for your offer to get a vote for Nouncil. Absolutely will keep you posted.

I think the addition of some sort of CTA that we can track and measure will make this prop sing.

Any chance we can try putting this proposal on Chain? Thanks Andrew!

Any chance to add some web3 functionality to the mural? I’d hate for it to be just a static thing that doesn’t connect to any of the new tech we see coming out every day.

Hey! Sorry for the delay. Is this the most updated version? I can post on the Nouncil prop incubator for a couple days and then put it up for a vote there.

It is the latest! Thank you kindly. I think some of the costing estimates are off in ETH terms given pricing fluctuations but the payments will need to be in USD for the building and USDC for the artist.

Appreciate your help getting this on chain for a vote!

What did you have in mind?

AR integration, QR codes that lead to rewards, something. It’s not my expertise! I know I’ve seen some amazing stuff at art shows though, and everything that caught my eye had some sort of web3 upgrade. OTherwise, why post it here in a web3 NFT Discourse?

Could you make it to a Nouncil meeting next Thursday at 10AM? I’d like to get you on the agenda and get this up for a vote.

Thanks Andrew. I absolutely can make that. See you there!

Are you in the discord already? Nouncil

I just joined and replied to your comment. I joined as “Beebs” but my noun is in my RoguePandas.eth wallet.