Are We Where We Live?

Portland poster via orkposters.com

The Anna Sui bou­tique is in Manhattan, right? Technically, yes — but more accu­rately, it is located in SoHo.

Looking to revel in the Harvey Milk-founded LGBT street fes­ti­val while in San Francisco? You have to go to the Castro.

Missing the open­ing act at the Metro in Chicago? That’s because you are in Bucktown, you need to zip over to Wrigleyville.

Point being, the best way to know a city is to know the neigh­bor­hoods. Local res­i­dents iden­tify with and fiercely defend their piece of turf within the mega­lopo­lis. The way in which these neigh­bor­hoods weave together ener­gizes a city — cre­at­ing it’s own spe­cial fla­vor and a deci­sive street vibe.

Chicago res­i­dent Jenny Beorkrem, founder of Ork Design, cel­e­brates this unique urban phe­nom­e­non with a series of cool typo­graphic neigh­bor­hood posters — bet­ter known as Ork Posters. She has taken the util­i­tar­ian mes­sages of a map and smartly spun them into deceiv­ingly func­tional and strik­ing dia­grams. Inspired by Bauhaus con­vic­tions and super­vised by her dog, Ms. Beorkrem devel­ops vibrant infor­ma­tional visu­als solely with forms from the DIN1451 type­face . She also hear­kens back to a golden age of poster design with bold, tex­tural ink result­ing from the screen print process. Sensible moder­nity bal­ances the vin­tage feel, evi­denced by the use of soy ink and recycled/recyclable mate­ri­als from New Leaf Paper and French Paper.

We are inclined to agree with the pos­i­tive acclaim that has been heaped upon these posters, cel­e­brated par­tic­u­larly in the Chicago International Poster Biennial. This series of thir­teen graph­ics is being snatched for rea­sons as far-reaching as to include the sim­ple adorn­ment of a base­ment apart­ment to the strate­gic styling of some swanky island resort.

For now, we sim­ply revel in the prac­ti­cal and com­po­si­tional genius of this work — spare yet dense spa­cial stud­ies. We also feel chal­lenged by Ms. Boerkrem to explore and iden­tify the cool sub­tleties within our own cities as we anx­iously wait for them to pop onto her roster.