In the heart of Metuchen’s downtown plaza, a once-forgotten wall now hums with color, script lettering, and the gentle illusion of motion. “Simply the Best” — a floral, typographic mural commissioned by the Metuchen Downtown Alliance, has quickly become more than a backdrop. It is a meeting place, a photo destination, and a quiet emblem of civic pride.
The wall itself posed the first creative challenge. Divided by a doorway, it offered two distinct surfaces rather than one seamless canvas. Originally, the design was meant to live only on the right side. But the blank left wall felt unresolved. The solution evolved into something more ambitious: two complementary compositions that “work together, look as one, but really are two separate entities,” says Olga Muzician, the muralist who made it.
On one side, flowing custom script declares the phrase “Simply the Best” against a field of stylized botanicals. On the other, a painted swing invites viewers to step inside the artwork. The result is cohesive but dynamic — a mural that, according to Muzician, reads as unified yet allows each side to “stand on its own.”
That interactive swing wasn’t an afterthought; it emerged from a previous concept sketch that the Downtown Alliance had admired. For the artist, participation has long been central to public art. “I’ve always been interested in creating interactive murals that kind of invite visitors to come and take a photo with it,” she explains. Yet she is careful not to overdo physical interaction. Words themselves, she states, create a different kind of participation.
“If there are words on it,” she notes, people need to “stop and read it.”
They have to “mentally interact with it.”
In that sense, even her non-interactive murals are conversational. They speak and expect a response.
“If there are words on it,” Olga Muzician says of words on murals, people need to “stop and read it.” They have to “mentally interact with it.” Muzi- cian is behind “Simply the Best” — a floral, typographic mural in the heart of Metuchen’s downtown plaza.
The phrase “Simply the Best” predates the mural. It was first developed as part of a branding initiative after Metuchen won a national downtown award in 2023. The rainbow-script design appeared on flags, stickers, and signage across town. When plans for the mural finally moved forward, the Alliance chose to extend the phrase into permanent public art, to make it a celebration of place rendered in paint.
But while the words were civic, the imagery was deeply personal.
“A lot of my murals are nature-inspired,” explains Muzician. “I love painting flowers and foliage, botanical elements.” Nature has long informed her palette and visual language. Yet this project marked a turning point. The florals here are neither photorealistic nor flatly graphic — they occupy an expressive in-between space.
“The simple flowers are pretty easy,” she notes. “But the really realistic flowers, they seem difficult, but they are actually pretty easy because you’re just copying a photograph.” The challenge — and the voice — lies in interpretation. “The in-between style … has more of an artistic voice. It has a more unique look and style. You can use more fun colors.”
That evolution reflects her broader philosophy. “If you try to push yourself, your style will continually evolve,” she observes. “I don’t like to get stuck in the same place for a long time.” Growth, for her, requires discomfort. “I do like to take projects that push me outside of my comfort zone … You learn new things and because of those projects where you’re really pushed out of your comfort zone, your style just ends up evolving naturally over time.”
Behind the apparent ease of the final mural lies hours of invisible labor. “It takes me more hours to do the concept than it takes me to actually paint the mural,” she reveals. Color, in particular, is painstaking. “I will explore, I don’t know, 30, 40 different combinations of colors before I actually arrive at the color combination that I really like.”
Her process begins in conversation with the client, then moves through research, sketchbook studies, and digital mockups on her iPad using Procreate. Typography leads the composition, says Muzician, who usually starts with the typography “because the style of the typography will guide the rest of the piece.” Every letterform is hand-drawn. All of her murals have custom lettering that she draws herself. That choice allows the script to weave seamlessly through leaves and blossoms, establishing hierarchy and legibility in a public space.
Even the smallest words matter. “Usually when I have the small words, like ‘the,’ ‘or,’ ‘and,’ or ‘a,’ I’ll do them in a simpler font, just so there’s a little of that dynamic feeling in the actual lettering,” she says.
During the installation of “Simply the Best,” she experienced a rare and gratifying moment: While still painting the swing side, she noticed people already posing in front of the completed half. “I’ve never actually seen people in person taking pictures next to my murals,” she says. “It felt kind of nice.”
Community, after all, is the point. Murals “intrinsically unify communities,” she says, because they bring people together. When one is made, it has “people talking about the same thing.” A mural becomes part of the environment, part of memory.
Muzician’s journey toward that public impact began far earlier. Born in Ukraine, she immigrated to the United States at age 10. Her godfather, a painter who taught drawing from life in his studio, became her first mentor. “I was six years old when my parents signed me up to his classes,” she recalls. “He taught me a lot of what I know today.”
That early foundation: drawing by hand and studying form still guides her work. Even in an age of digital tools and viral photo moments, she remains committed to the rigor behind the beauty.
In Metuchen, what was once an “eyesore” wall is now a landmark. Couples pose beneath painted petals. Children reach toward a butterfly mid-flight. Strangers meet at a doorway once ignored. The mural reads as a simple affirmation. But its deeper message may be this: The best public art does not merely decorate a place, it gathers it.
