In The Paint Murals

08/25/2026

We painted this DC wall at Leading Authorities Inc. headquarters during the early days of In the Paint. The idea was to make the city part of the office itself, combining recognizable pieces of Washington with a looser background of color, splashes and drips.

The office hosted plenty of meetings and events over the years, and some very DC-famous people walked past it. Hearing them stop and comment on the mural on their way to a meeting was always pretty great.

Now Leading Authorities Inc. is moving, and the mural is staying behind. We left our name on it for whoever comes next.

If you moved into this office space, would you keep the mural?

08/14/2026

06/29/2026

Swipe across the full Affiliated Barbershop mural and you’ll see why this wall needed more than one frame.

On the left, Nipsey’s portrait sets the tone in detailed black and white. On the other side of the doorway, the gold Affiliated logo carries the same layered linework running through the rest of the wall.
The gold shape moving through the mural was pulled from one of Colekutz ™ ‘s cut designs. It breaks apart, moves across the wall, and ties the whole piece together. That gold changes with the room. As light hits it from different angles, it plays against the ultra-matte black shadows and makes parts of the mural feel like they’re lifting off the surface.

There’s LA set deep in the background. Frederick shows up in the church spires and skyline details. Cherry blossoms sit across the top, adding that D.C. color to the black-and-white base. The barber pole cuts through the mural as a classic shop marker, bringing a sharp hit of color into the black, white, and gold. “The Marathon Continues” ties back to Nipsey’s legacy, the idea that what you build can keep moving, keep teaching, and keep inspiring people after you.
Above the doorway, “Respect the Craft” brings it all home.

Then the foreground details start to pop, the Pac-Man character, our brush character Dunk, the Champion mark turned into an A, the razors, the smoke, and the shop’s 2019 mark. The Pac-Man and Dunk pieces were painted in enamel with clean, precise edges, giving them a different finish from the matte wall, almost like oversized stickers placed on top of the mural.

The further you scroll, the more the wall gives you.

Mural for The Affiliated Barbershop 
Painted by In The Paint Murals

04/17/2026

Not every mural idea makes it to the wall, but this one still sticks with us.

We think about it all the time when we’re downtown. Frederick in wooden block letters, like the kind of toys you’d find at Dancing Bear. A few playful bears worked into the scene. The selfie bear on the corner throwing up a peace sign. And a cute little Snallygaster floating overhead… minus the tentacles. We’re still trying to solve that part in a way that keeps him weird, but not nightmare fuel.

This is a mockup, but we usually stay pretty close to the original design when we paint. We kept this version smaller based on the original scope, but there’s room to spread the stacked blocks out into a row across more of the wall.

It never happened, but we still love this one.

Could you picture this downtown?

MarylandArt