Heritage bronze plaques are a timeless way to honour history and preserve the character of historic homes and landmarks. Crafting these plaques requires careful planning, with extensive research and reference images to ensure historical accuracy and visual appeal. Since every detail must be meticulously pieced together, these plaques demand extra time and effort to create a design that is both aesthetically pleasing and suitable for casting. The result is a beautifully crafted tribute that not only enhances the charm of a heritage property but also stands as a lasting testament to its rich history.
Bronze Plaques Oz was recently given the opportunity to design a collection of heritage plaques for the City of Stirling. We worked together closely to create plaques based on photos; some old and some newer. We also had some help sourcing photos from the good people at Mount Lawley Society who do an incredible job of preserving and promoting heritage protection within WA’s heritage suburbs of Mount Lawley, Inglewood and Menora. The plaques mark heritage buildings, all within close proximity, that are now part of a heritage walk which offers a rich historical experience.
This vastly intricate federation style building posed some real dilemmas. While capturing the overall shape, detail would be lost or vice versa. We settled on a design which captured the most interesting part of the building while retaining some detail. The perspective was adjusted to help show the scale, the night sky added for dramatic effect and some compositional space.
The Astor Theatre is more than 100 years old and the old photos were well preserved. The main challenge here was removing the ‘christmas tree’ lamppost from the better photo and adding the detail back into the building. The people and signage also got some extra attention to help preserve the antique feel.
This was based on the third design attempt as the previous attempts struggled to make the box-like shape look interesting. The surroundings became an integral part of the design as the composition would have been sparse without them.
The working photo here shows the shadows picked out to emphasise on the plaque. The surrounding trees and shrubs worked well to complete the composition.
The original design for Dr Arkles residence left out the front fence and pavement which ended up making it look too sterile. The extra time spent on the front detail was worth the effort to give it more of a homely feel.
The working photo here shows the process of picking out the shadows in action. Though the building was not a particularly interesting shape, a little distortion of perspective brought it to life.
While the original photo had far too much detail – some of it being difficult to decipher – depicting the light and shadows was the goal. This was a satisfying plaque to design as it had real depth and gave us the opportunity to carry out a few repairs.
The midtones here provided a challenge which involved a lot of designer discretion. Capturing the overall shape was the most important goal here so trees were pruned, lights were dimmed and dims were lit.