Winter is here, and the holidays are quickly approaching.  For many, December 1st marks the beginning of the annual madness of holiday shopping. Throughout the month, we search, we shop, we wrap and finally, we give.  Come December 26th, empty boxes and gift-wrap are strewn about the living room, and eleven months later, we begin the cycle again.  While the holidays are filled with love, tradition, family and friends, there is an undercurrent of materialistic tendencies that can get the better of us if we’re not careful.  

So in the spirit of a meaningful and less wasteful holiday, we’ve put together a list of healthy, high quality and material-free gifts this season. 

INDOOR PLANTS

Winter can be so gray.  Bring some green into your home this year.  Not only do plants absorb carbon dioxide (and release oxygen), but many also remove toxins from the air, as well as improve your overall health and level of focus.  (For our fellow New Yorkers with not so many windows, we recommend the ZZ Plant, the Snake Plant and the Peace Lily.)

QUOTATION PLAQUES 

Small quotations and poems can be a daily source of inspiration and guidance.  Create a custom bronze or aluminum plaque in the color and finish of your choice, depicting a personal mantra or quote of your choosing.  Our custom plaques can be installed indoors or out, as metal plaques hold up well under various weather conditions.  Install the plaque in a place where you will see it everyday to encourage positivity and reflection.

FAMILY CRESTS / HOME PLAQUES

Need a gift for the family member that has everything?  Commemorate a family seal, a childhood home or family portrait as a long-lasting gift for their home.  Our studio can help you design a plaque in the size and material of your choosing.  Just send us over an image, and we can recommend a variety of techniques to pay tribute to your family’s unique history. 

GIVE THE GIFT OF EXPERIENCE 

Great plans beat “more stuff” just about any day.  Spend time with friends and family outdoors, visit a museum or see a play.  Activities often create memories that are longer lasting than the material gifts we give to each other.

GIVE BACK

Volunteering your time is a valuable gift to loved-ones and others in your community. Spend time with a grandparent or out of town relative, or donate to a charitable organization in the name of someone you love.  Helping others is the gift that gives back.

Brookland Middle School, 1150 Michigan Ave NE, Washington DC – Public Art Project

Public artist, Beth Ravitz, recently commissioned Masterwork Plaques to fabricate seven cast bronze portrait medallions for Brookland Middle School in Washington, D.C.  In addition to our medallions, Ravitz also created and installed three aluminum banners that decorate the side of the school. 

Brookland Middle School is a magnet school for the arts and language and starts its first school year in fall of 2015.  The public art project tells the story of Brookland’s history and fosters a sense of community around the newly constructed middle school.  Ravitz’s goal in creating these banners and portrait medallions is to create harmony between the old and new architecture of the community and inspire hope and progress to the residents and students through visual language.  The seven portrait medallions were created to commemorate influential individuals that lived or were connected to Brookland in some way. (Images at bottom of blog)

Using the Masterwork Plaque bronze “photo-rendering” technique, each portrait was recreated in bronze.  Photo-rendered portraits are a great alternative to the time-intensive, bas-relief carved portraits that our studio also offers.  Photo-portraits are very low-relief, dimensional images translated into bronze directly from a client’s photograph.  We can create these photo-renderings from both recent and historic images, provided that the image is not blurry or pixelated.  The Brookland medallions were created from historic photographs of artists, writers, singers and others.  Each black and white photograph was cropped and inset into the design for these 18” diameter bronze medallions.  The portraits were then accompanied by a short summary of each artist’s achievements and finished with a surrounding border containing his/her name, birth and death, and profession.  The medallions were secured to low concrete pedestals on site.  Each pedestal is twelve inches off the ground at the front and rises to eighteen inches at the back so that they can be easily read by passersby.

Photo-rendered portraits are great solutions for historic plaques with black and white photos, memorial plaques for loved ones, dedication plaques for company founders, employees and more. This technique is suitable for both inset medallions and wall-mounted plaques and can be created using both cast bronze and cast aluminum.

Important notes for photo-rendered portrait plaques:

• The provided image can be black & white or color.
• The provided image should be sharp, high-quality and preferably 300 dpi in resolution.
• The provided image should NOT have significant pixilation, blurriness, or dramatic shadowing.
• Manufacturing time is approximately four weeks after the order is placed.

Our bronze plaques are created using a true chemical patina.  A true chemical patina chemically changes the surface color of the bronze, which eliminates the possibility of chipping away or peeling off over time, as occurs with a layer of paint or a stain from imitation patinas.  Often times plaque companies will apply a layer of paint rather than a chemical patina, which is cheaper, but will not last the test of time.

Masterwork Plaques can provide a large range of options when translating imagery, graphics and portraits into cast bronze plaques.  One of the most unique and artistic methods we use is what is called a “bas-relief” technique.  This hand carving technique is a time-intensive, one-of-a-kind process, created with help from our studio’s experienced clay artists. “Bas-relief” is a traditional method of low relief sculpture, and is often found on historic bronze plaques. While it is most often associated with portraits, it can be used for logos, architectural renderings and depictions of plants, animals and people. Bas-relief imagery adds an authenticity and character to your cast bronze plaque project that can't be matched.

The bas-relief carving process starts with an image.  When creating portrait plaques, we ask our customers to provide an image of the person they are looking to memorialize in bronze.  We then share this image with our clay artists and after sitting with the portrait; they attempt to capture the person’s features, smile and unique qualities in clay.  Our studio works closely with both our clients and sculptors to ensure that the carving has a true likeness to the subject. 

Once the clay carving is complete, our designers mold the carving using a two-part rubber mold, and finally cast it again in plastic.  This gives us a more sturdy relief pattern that is safe for casting in bronze.  After the portrait plaque is cast in bronze, we then finish our bronze plaques with a true chemical patina, so that the bronze plaque will last for years, without the risk of peeling or chipping.

 Important notes for Bas-Relief Portrait Plaques

• The subjects face must be at least 6” high from chin to crown.
• The provided image must be of high quality with minimal pixilation, blurriness, and shadowing.
• Two rounds of revisions are included, to ensure a true likeness to the subject.
• Manufacturing time is approximately 8-10 weeks after the order is placed. 

Bas-relief carvings are a great way to differentiate your plaque from the mass-produced signage and template based memorial plaques that too often dominate in the plaque-making industry.  Our studio has created portrait plaques, historical markers, and even architectural renderings using bronze bas relief.  Masterwork Plaques is committed to revolutionizing the plaque making business, from a field with mass-produced signage and standard template based plaques, into an industry where each plaque is created from unique designs and materials of the finest quality. 

The Renovation of Edgewood Shopping Center, 72" x 48" Cast Bronze Plaques

Masterwork Plaques was invited to create two large-scale commemorative plaques for the Edgewood Plaza Shopping Center, located in Palo Alto, CA, which were recently installed in May 2015.  The shopping center was originally developed by the well-known real estate developer, Joseph Eichler, in the mid-1950’s.  Over the past few years, the site has gone through restoration and redevelopment by Sand Hill Property Company.  Our custom-designed bronze plaques include the original site plans created by Eichler and architect A. Quincy Jones in 1955, in addition to providing a brief history of Eichler’s well-known “California Modern” style. 

Image provided by Sand Hill Property Company and the Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

Joseph Eichler developed over 11,000 affordable houses in California, and is considered one of the most influential builders of his day.  He was influenced by the styles of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, and even lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright house himself.  His goal was to “bring the outside in” with floor to ceiling windows, patios and gardens.  He incorporated these ideas into Edgewood Plaza, the only commercial property Eichler ever built. The original shopping center was considered a landmark for its suburban post-war design, and for this reason, the two custom bronze plaques were created.  

Edgewood Plaza: Cast Bronze Plaque (1 of 2)

Our studio was able to recreate several of Eichler’s original site drawings and architectural plans in bronze. Taken from a scan from historic archives, the first plaque shows two different renderings created in the mid 1950’s (the third is a photograph from 2014).  Our studio can depict historic renderings in two ways: either illustrated in flat-relief, or recreated as a photo-rendered image.  The illustrated drawing spans across the bottom half of the first plaque.  This drawing from A. Quincy Jones was originally rendered in a simple black and white style. We felt this style was important to keep alive when translated into bronze. The second image in the top left corner of the first plaque is rendered in a photographic style, because the original rendering was composed of complex shading, more like a photographic image.  It is contrasted with a photo from the 2014 renovated site to its right. On the second plaque (shown below), the original illustrated plan view from the 1955 shopping center is shown contrasted against its 2014 renovated layout, giving us another before and after look at Edgewood Plaza, then and now.

Edgewood Plaza: Cast Bronze Plaque (2 of 2)

Masterwork Plaques has worked with many commercial properties in the past on projects ranging in complexity from building management plaques, to historic commemorations and landmark projects.  For a bronze plaque project of this scope, “before and after” images both commemorate the original designs and welcome any changes to the newly renovated properties.  The custom plaques also provide an opportunity for education and historic context for the casual passerby.  For more information on historic landmark plaques and building management plaques, send us an email at masterworkplaques@gmail.com.

Starbucks Coffee: N7th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

These newly installed Starbucks medallions were created to commemorate the origin of the renowned coffee company in Seattle and welcome the franchise to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The eight-inch diameter bronze medallions are installed in the second Starbucks location in Williamsburg, and share the space with other works of art from local Brooklyn artisans. The two bronze medallions are inset into a custom walnut table, suited for coffee tastings, and depict an image of the original “Pike’s Place” café and the Williamsburg bridge using traditional bas-relief techniques. Customers sitting in the café are encouraged to interact with the bronze while tasting coffee from around the world.  The bronze coffee beans and various hand-carved cocoa leaves give each plaque a unique tactile texture and give the tasting area an artisanal and unique quality.  New collaborations with Starbucks are underway at our studio, with every new medallion created commemorating the local histories from each unique location.  

Custom bronze medallions modernize and differentiate familiar spaces.  With thousands of locations across the country and world, the unique artworks are what set the Williamsburg Starbucks location apart, making the café feel local, original and a part of the Williamsburg community. Each medallion features a custom border made from casting actual coffee beans, which make the bronze insets unique to Starbucks.  Cast bronze medallions can be created at any size and shape using bas-relief carving techniques and can be customized with photographs, carvings, tactile objects and text.   

How can I add a portrait or photograph to a cast bronze plaque?

More often than not, cast bronze memorial and commemorative plaques will include an image of a loved one, principal, board member or friend in addition to a paragraph listing their accomplishments.  Our studio can recreate portraits and photographs onto a cast bronze plaque in one of three ways: photo-rendered portraits, bas-relief portraits and illustrated portraits.

bas-relief portraits

The most traditional portrait type is created using a bas-relief technique.  Using this method, one of our professional artists will hand carve a sculpted portrait of the subject based on the photograph of your choice. Originally carved in clay, then molded and cast in bronze or aluminum, this technique largely relies on the skills of our clay artists. This portrait technique takes 8-10 weeks to complete, and is the most expensive portrait option we offer.

PHOTO-RENDERED PORTRAITS

One of our studio's more contemporary techniques we use for portraits is the photo-rendering technique.  This method digitally translates a high-resolution photograph into a low relief, multi-dimensional casting.  It retains many of the details of the photograph, ensuring a high-quality exact reproduction in bronze.  This is a less time-consuming technique, with manufacturing time running around 4 weeks.  It is also the most affordable portrait option at our studio.

illustrated portraits

Another more contemporary portrait technique is the illustrated portrait option.  Our designers will use a photograph of your choice as a template for a black & white illustrated drawing of the subject.  All the white areas in the illustration will convert into raised bronze colored areas on the plaque, and the black portions of the drawing will be recessed and dark and will become the plaque background. Manufacturing time for an illustrated plaque runs around 5-6 weeks.  

What borders can I add to my cast bronze plaque?

Cast bronze plaques can be created with a variety of different border styles.  Typically a cast bronze plaque will have a simple border that is raised extending about ¼” from the edge of the plaque.  Borders are typically recommended on most cast bronze plaques, as they give the piece a finished and refined quality and also protect the central text and graphics from general damage. However, on occasion a borderless cast plaque may be preferred if the plaque will be inset into brick or into the ground and needs to have a seamless and integrated look with its surroundings. If a border is preferred, a standard single line border can be expanded to a double line border, beveled edge border, or even a combination of more than one border technique.  These borders are standard at our studio and are included in the price of the plaque (shown below).

What fonts can be used on a cast bronze plaque?

Fonts are great tools for setting the tone of your cast bronze plaque.  When the designers here at Masterwork Plaques create a custom layout for your plaque, we think about the content of the piece, the client’s aesthetic, the intention of the plaque, where it will be installed, and who will see the plaque on a day-to-day basis.  Typically our designers think about fonts in three main categories: serifs, sans serifs and scripts.

Serif fonts typically have the most traditional look.  The word “serif” is defined as "small decorative lines added as an embellishment on the basic form of a letter".  Classic examples of a serif font are Times Roman, Garamond and the font "Cochin" as shown above.  These fonts are very well suited for commemorative plaques and dedication plaques as they have a more distinguished feel and look.

Sans serif fonts have a more modern aesthetic.  The most classic examples of sans serif fonts are Arial (shown above) and Helvetica.  These fonts do not have decorative embellishments on each letter; instead, they have a clean and simple shape.  Sans serif fonts are perfect for signage as they are easy to read from a distance.  They are also excellent choices for regulation plaques and property management plaques.

Script fonts are based on handwritten cursive, but are typically more elegant and calligraphic.  Script fonts can be either formal or informal depending on their use.  While our designers typically use scripts less often than serif and sans serif fonts, they can be the perfect choice for a formal bronze plaque or a plaque created for personal use.