Made In Chicago: Ork Posters
(CBS) -- 32-year-old Jenny Beorkrem was born in Iowa the Quad Cities and went to college in Madison, Wisconsin.
"I just wanted to be in the big city," she said. "So I moved here as soon as I could."
She started looking around for a Chicago neighborhood map to hang on the wall of her apartment.
"I had originally seen more of a traditional old-school neighborhood map," Beorkrem said. "It wasn't really my style. So I started looking for something that was more simple, more type-faced and couldn't find anything."
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As a graphic designer, she made her own on a computer, each neighborhood drawn and then labeled as she experimented with typeface.
"This is kind of twisting and turning," she said. "Almost like a puzzle, really, to fit into the areas."
Eight years ago she started selling the Chicago neighborhood posters. Her business in Ravenswood is called Ork Posters - "Ork" taken from the middle of her last name, Beorkrem.
"I didn't really think much about it when I was starting out," she said. "You just kind of have to roll with it once you pick it."
She's expanded beyond Chicago - and has maps of other cities. The ones with fewer neighborhoods, she says, are of course easier than the more spread-out metropolises like LA.
"Toronto was definitely very challenging," she said. "It's made up of three or four other cities that eventually were absorbed by Toronto. So it has sprawled a little bit."
Beorkrem's printing for every poster she designs is all done in Chicago neighborhoods.
For more information, visit orkposters.com.
