Our Mission

After curating images for a set of 24 blocks, I began a search to find manufacturing capability to produce in quantity, the quality of alphabet block I envisioned. I quickly confirmed that artisan craftsmanship and mass production are not the same, and that the difference impacts not just what is available in terms of quality, level of detail, fit and finish; but whether a product is mass produced versus handcrafted also determines which cultures and what values find representation in the marketplace. 

 CulturcraftLabs CulturCubes are one and a half inch square rather than one or one and a quarter inch. This allows us to render images in greater detailed. We don't believe children should have to decipher highly abstracted representations of things at the same time they're already having to learn both to name and to sound out the names of things. This concern to present clear, detailed images is also why we turned to lasers to burn highly detailed images onto our blocks. 

In another blog post we discussed our paints; but before the raw blocks are painted, they need to be sanded. Again, this is done block by block, individually and by hand. This may seem obsessive, but if you closed your eyes, and were given one of our blocks along with virtually any other commercially available toy block, you'd likely have little trouble discerning between the two. We're certain I child would also sense the difference, if only subconsciously.

The idea then with our CulturCubes, and any future products we may come up with, is not to make bags of money trading on trendy imagery. Rather, we want to offer the option of a culturally inclusive, hand-crafted, artisan quality heirloom at a price point that, if we are successful, will become increasingly accessible as we grow.