CURAE INC:
Feel the world at your fingertips
Curae Inc. was built from a deep appreciation for craftsmanship, nature, and meaningful design. Created and ran by my now husband and myself, we designed and handcrafted topographic lakes and maps from solid hardwood, using the most accurate depth and terrain data available to create pieces that were as functional as they were beautiful.
Paired with our signature clear blue resin, each work captured real, organic depth and showcased the natural character of a lake or landscape in a way that felt both artistic and true to place. What began as a two-person passion grew into a business we were incredibly proud of, with our work finding homes around the world, including as far as Hong Kong.
CURAE INC:
Feel the world at your fingertips
Curae Inc. was built from a deep appreciation for craftsmanship, nature, and meaningful design. Created and ran by my now husband and myself, we designed and handcrafted topographic lakes and maps from solid hardwood, using the most accurate depth and terrain data available to create pieces that were as functional as they were beautiful.
Paired with our signature clear blue resin, each work captured real, organic depth and showcased the natural character of a lake or landscape in a way that felt both artistic and true to place. What began as a two-person passion grew into a business we were incredibly proud of, with our work finding homes around the world, including as far as Hong Kong.
Branding:
We chose the name Curae as it means care in Latin, which was exactly what we wanted to do in every aspect of our business – care for the environment by choosing sustainably sourced hardwoods locally in Ontario for our work, care for our customers by hearing their stories of the pieces they were having us commission and making lasting memories they could pass down in their families.
To carry the care theme into the logo, I brainstormed designs with a hospital cross, leaf and heart to see what stood out to us the most. We decided going with the heart shape leaf, tying together the care theme with our main material, local Ontario hardwoods.
CNC & Graphic Design:
What a match made in heaven! My partner, (now husband) Robin started learning Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machining and saw the opportunity to turn it into an art business when finding public topographic maps online and translated their information into G-codes.
I joined Robin after about a year of research and design had been completed in order to establish Curae’s branding and grow manufacturing operations.
Branding:
We chose the name Curae as it means care in Latin, which was exactly what we wanted to do in every aspect of our business – care for the environment by choosing sustainably sourced hardwoods locally in Ontario for our work, care for our customers by hearing their stories of the pieces they were having us commission and making lasting memories they could pass down in their families.
To carry the care theme into the logo, I brainstormed designs with a hospital cross, leaf and heart to see what stood out to us the most. We decided going with the heart shape leaf, tying together the care theme with our main material, local Ontario hardwoods.
CNC & Graphic Design:
What a match made in heaven! My partner, (now husband) Robin started learning Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machining and saw the opportunity to turn it into an art business when finding public topographic maps online and translated their information into G-codes.
I joined Robin after about a year of research and design had been completed in order to establish Curae’s branding and grow manufacturing operations.
Book & Brochure Layout:
While we had a very strong following on socials (10k on instagram within the first year), we chose to do various trade shows to gain business.
Our work was beautiful to see in pictures, but was magnificent in person, and we wanted our audience to experience it for themselves.
I created all of our print materials to show past work and to tell our story.
Art Examples:
booth Design:
Many of our in-person events required professional-level booth developements, which I designed and Robin and I manufactured ourselves. We were artists on a tight budget with only my white hatchback for transporting our booth and all our art, so learning the correct strategy to make the biggest impact with what we had was key.
Designing walls that could form into various layouts ended up being key for us, so we could re-use the same materials depending on booth sizing at our shows.
booth Design:
Many of our in-person events required professional-level booth developements, which I designed and Robin and I manufactured ourselves. We were artists on a tight budget with only my white hatchback for transporting our booth and all our art, so learning the correct strategy to make the biggest impact with what we had was key.
Designing walls that could form into various layouts ended up being key for us, so we could re-use the same materials depending on booth sizing at our shows.