This may be the first time we’ve written about anyone outside the metropolitan area — but Jenny Beorkrem is worth it. The Chicago designer created a frenzy on local blogs from Curbed to Design*Sponge when she launched the site for her typographic neighborhood maps, Ork Posters, in November of last year.
By late December, just from the online mentions alone, her entire inventory of Chicago, Brooklyn, Manhattan, SF, and Boston maps was wiped out — and now, what Beorkrem thought was “going to be a little side project” has allowed the 24-year-old to leave her full-time gig and focus on her own career. “Now I get to be creative all day and not have a client,” she said. Hear, Hear!
The idea for Ork Posters came when Beorkrem saw a neighborhood map she knew she could improve upon — so she designed her hometown first, using a font (for all you design heads who care about these things) called DIN 1451 that dates back to the 1930s. “It’s geometric and I think that’s why it fit so well in the posters,” said Beorkrem.
Chi-Town weighed in with 91 hoods, the most of any city she’s mapped so far. Brooklyn came second, both in the order of maps and number of nabes (49)* — but it sold out first. Everyone who was quick to click got one of the 300 screen prints in white on black or navy on cream — for the Navy Yard of course — including Marty Markowitz. (They’re going to carry some in the Borough Hall Visitors Center soon.)
But many — like us! — missed out. So, we approached Jenny and asked that she design a limited edition screen print in Brooklyn Based’s colors: a bold (like Brooklyn) orange-gold and cream — and in two weeks or so, she’ll roll out these signed, numbered 18×24 inch prints priced at $35 each. (Email us if you’d like a reminder once they go on sale.) and these signed, numbered 18×24 inch prints are now on sale now at orkposters.com/bkbased.
They’re pricier than her new $22 posters and her original, $27 screen prints (her site explains the difference). But unlike those other Brooklyn maps, there are only 100 of these babies, and the frame shops on our Fix-It List agreed to offer a 10 to 15 percent discount if you bring it in for framing.
Two percent of all Ork Posters proceeds go to the non-profits HEAL Africa, and, in memory of Beorkrem’s environmentalist uncle, River Action. And did we mention Beorkrem uses soy-based inks on her posters and recycled paper exclusively?
“I live that way and I make those choices in my life,” she explained, “so why shouldn’t my business do the same?”
*The map doesn’t note microhoods like PLG, East Williamsburg, and Wallabout.
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