Margo Plenge’s Graphic Design Blog

Cities in Pieces: Postcards

March 26, 2012 · Filed under Photography · Tagged NYC, Torino, Zurich

I try to take my camera everywhere I go – there’s always something worth recording, something that speaks to you.

Each city I visit is different, and I tried to capture that in details rather than the whole. Sometimes these are architectural, sometimes garbage and detritus. Very different, but both things that people have left behind – a kind of archaeology.

I made these into postcards (the traditional pre-Internet record of a city or visit) grouping similar subjects on each of them, such as colours, shapes, nature, random objects, things lieing around.

For me, that is how cities speak their own particular language. These details may describe the public culture of a city, or the citizen’s/community’s behaviour.

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More recycled furniture…

January 7, 2012 · Filed under Crafts · Tagged printer's last, recycling, table

Ian used to live in Wapping, in a converted warehouse by The Thames called Oliver’s Wharf. I loved the place and many things he had there, things he bought or found that had an industrial feel. As he was moving out in May 2002 he got rid of many things I prefer not to think about – not worth money, but the fact they were old made them so valuable to me.

Luckily, what he kept followed us in our journey across Europe, including a metal printer’s last (very appropriate for Wapping), which unfortunately was missing the original type trays. We fixed this by having 5 metal shelves made, and it’s now practical as well as beautiful, storing magazines, wine, etc.

He also had a (what he called) “the ugly table”. Metal legs and a fiberboard top where he used to stack computers and printers. I went to my local colorificio/ferramenta in Torino (paint & hardware shop) and explained in my (then) primitive italian what I wanted to do and they gave my lots of advice:

I first had to prime it,
then transfer the design,
then varnish the top and sand/polish it (repeated at least 5 times with progressively finer sandpaper).

I wanted the legs to keep their original industrial look, so I painted them with matt metal varnish.

It was lots of work but worth and fun doing it. But it looks fab!

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Recycled Furniture!

December 13, 2011 · Filed under Crafts

When we were living in Torino, I made a guest bed using 4 industrial pallets. The only thing we bought new was the mattress. Unfortunately I have no pictures to show. Years passed and we moved to Zurich, and no longer had the large space of the beautiful 19th century palazzo in Torino. The pallet bed was too large for the guest room/studio/ski storage room we have now, so we replaced it with a futon.

I don’t like waste material that can be reused so I decided to make a table for the living room from the pallets.

I designed the new table and it’s very simple and easy to make: I did use some suppliers and craft-people in Zurich to help me realize this new, and partly recycled table:

Dynamo (www.dynamo.ch/metall) in Zurich Kreis 6 has a wonderful metal workshop, where you can either do your own stuff with the motto “learning by doing” or have someone to it for a reasonable (Zurich) price. They made the 4 metal corners to hold the 3 pallets together from the designs I provided.
There is a glass warehouse opposite our home in Kreis 4 (www.glas-maeder.ch) where they cut the glass.

I cut and glued/screwed the pallets together. The design allows space to place books inside and as the top is glass, one can see what books are inside. It was cheap to make, lots of fun and brought satisfaction in using existing material I didn’t want to waste. I still have some pallet leftovers and I’m planing to make bookshelves next.

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BBC Pictures – Wind

August 1, 2011 · Filed under Competitions, Photography

The BBC publishes a weekly gallery of readers’ pictures on a set theme. For week starting Thu 28t July the theme was wind, and I submitted the three photos below. One was selected and you can see it here (it’s at the end)). Stay tuned for more!

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Hoppé street portraits competition

June 10, 2011 · Filed under Competitions, Photography · Tagged Hoppé, London

As part of Hoppé Portraits: Society, Studio & Street exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, we were invited to submit our photographic portraits of everyday life in the 2010s, inspired by Hoppé’s portrayal through street photography.

All the photographs entered were projected at the Late Shift Extra event on Friday 13 May. Here are my entries. You can see all the entries here – Hoppé Portraits Flickr group.

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Brooch Time

March 30, 2011 · Filed under Crafts · Tagged jewelery, watches

When we were at the Balôn last month, we found a box full of old wrist watch faces selling for between €0.50 and €2.00 (for the ones that still contained part of the mechanism attached to the face). I spent almost an hour choosing the best ones, and last week made two brooches. Here they are, along with a few photos of the faces alone:

(Last photo credit: Randa Carranza)

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XPaperX

March 29, 2011 · Filed under Commercial

Ian worked for PaperX.com, a London-based B2B marketplace startup, in 2000. Last year he and two ex-colleagues organised a 10-year reunion party in Soho, where PaperX was based. I designed an invite, based on the original corporate identity (by Agency.com), but using a sketching / caricature style to bring back memories of starting new things, and Bjarne and Lex, who made it happen.

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What I bought at the Gran Balôn

March 22, 2011 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged Cities, coffee makers, draws, flea markets, Markets, Torino

Last month I visited Torino, and went to the Gran Balôn, an amazing flea market just north of the centre. I bought two practical and beautiful items for the house, an OMG stove-top espresso maker, and an old wooden draw (and you can’t have too many draws, can you?).