Tali Cultivate

San Luis Obispo, California

Project Type

Collateral

Responsibilities

Creative direction
Visual design

The Client

Tali Cultivate is a non-profit project by jewelry designers, Ariana and Alona Sinclair, initiated to shed light on global, environmental, and sociological issues via informative booklet publications. Tali Cultivate also supplies design and gemstone reference booklets for jewelry designers.

Visual Design // Collateral

By nature this mother-daughter duo are something of a pair of vagabonds, travelling the globe and interacting with other craftspeople in their pursuit of fair trade gemstones and metals. Through their travels, the pair were made aware of several serious issues involving the environment, labor and trade practices, sustainability, and the gemstone mining industry. After taking action with various non-profits, they were inspired to contribute their own brand of awareness promotion, in the form of educational reading materials.

Minerals

Tali Cultivate also publishes jewelry design lookbooks and gemstone reference materials. Their gemstone reference booklet, Minerals, includes detailed geological data on the most commonly used gemstones in the US jewelry design industry. Although this is a scientific reference, I designed it to be awe-inspiring by showcasing the striking beauty of the natural formations covered. In addition to macro and diverse gemstone and jewel photography, detailed data is included, such as molecular formulas, refractive indices, specific gravity, class, hardness, geographical source, and more.

Exploration 2008-2020

I worked with the pair and their traveling companions to design an editorial-type catalog using their photography, anecdotes, and stories from their 2008-2019 globetrotting adventures. I provided moderate copywriting and editing to polish the verbiage and content flow, but my primary focus were the visuals and page layouts. Each chapter features a unique design reflective of the region, and story content that takes the reader on a journey to a new place with each page turn.

The resulting publication we designed is in the form of a traveler’s journal, offering details of the pair’s destination spots that segue into enlightening content about ongoing concerns in each region. The aim was to create a publication with a personal narrative that reads like a story from beginning to end. I didn’t want to overwhelm or guilt readers with overt call-to-action content, but rather to make a connection on a human level in an organic, non-forced manner. The content is meant to resonate and inspire the reader, leaving them with a positive sense, and just maybe sparking them to get involved with a philanthropic cause that speaks to them.