Collaborating with American Crafters: Tactile Craftworks
This week we have another installation of our Collaborating with American Crafters series, featuring the creative ladies over at Tactile Craftworks. We’ve had the pleasure of working with Tactile for some time now, and their brand is constantly growing and changing. We’ll give you a snapshot of Tactile today and show you some of the incredible work they do on this week’s blog!
An Introduction to Tactile Craftworks
Tactile Craftworks is a small leather crafting company based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The company was founded in 2014 by two young women, Sarah Heck and Anna Warren, who share their passion for crafts(wo)manship with the world. Partnering together in their shared company for over 5 years now, the pair strive to make pieces that are long-lasting, beautiful to look at, and satisfying to hold.
When we say American-made, we mean it. All of Tactile’s products are made in-house in their Midwest studio. They’ve discovered the unique qualities of leather and embrace how visceral working with leather really is: “it's all sharp knives, metal stamps and rawhide mallets.” Leather working is not for the weak, but these women have embraced the rough process that is leather working with great success.
What Makes Them Stand Out
Sarah and Anna produce unique and stunning designs with leather. The company founders receive raw animal hides on a regular basis from local tanneries within the United States to use for their creations. These tanned leather materials make their work fun: each piece is different, all with its own set of fat wrinkles, scars, and little imperfections. This is what makes the leather real, and real interesting to work with. From there, Sarah, Anna, and their small Wisconsin-based team used these natural materials to craft a variety of unique wares.
“Our work is most inspired by the idea of place, and our emotional responses to both home and travel. We consider ourselves lucky to be a tiny part of a traditional craft, and we feel a sense of responsibility to work hard at it. We try to honor the craftsmanship that has come before us, while trusting our own eyes and aesthetics.” -Tactile Craftworks
Tactile is probably most famous for their Atlas Series, where they utilize their natural leathers to produce items with map designs. From flasks to clutch bags, from passport wallets to journals, Tactile’s Atlas Series features the biggest and best in world cities (some of which being Washington D.C., Tokyo, Paris, and London!).
Tactile and The Great Republic, Working Together
Tactile's Atlas Series is constantly growing and changing. They even offered us, The Great Republic, the opportunity to custom-design our own Washington D.C. journal. Check it out below:
Washington D.C. City Map Journal
$135
While this journal appears to be a traditional view of Washington D.C., the map used for this design is actually from our own inventory! We used this antique map to produce this custom journal design. Take a look at the spelling of Potomac for a little clue into what makes the map different: the river is spelled in the old rendition, as the map we used for this design dates to 1790-1820!
Tactile works well with our own individual brand, as we can collaborate to custom designs like this one to fit in with our own aesthetic. Tactile Craftworks recently partnered with us to create a custom journal in celebration of the Apollo 11 Moon landing anniversary celebrated this past July. See the journal below:
Apollo 11 Moon Landing Leather Journal
$145
This Moon journal was our brainchild and Tactile executed the design perfectly. The journal, exclusive only to The Great Republic, features a map of the Moon on the cover, wrapping around to the back, with a famous quote from Neil Armstrong at bottom left. Tactile’s attention to detail and unique design ideas was what made this journal come to life.
If you haven’t already, go check out this very cool company! You can shop some of their pieces here. We’ll keep you updated on up and coming collaborations with them in the future!
