I. The Objects We Live With
We are a product of our environment. The spaces we inhabit and the objects we live with influence the way we feel, think and behave, and form the framework for our identities and life story. Colorado-based The Soft Minimal approaches the making of artworks like Tali, a tabletop sculpture in polished metal, from the belief that good design is an important element of a good life. Through insightful essays and the works The Soft Minimal designs, Tali came to be: made to meet and follow the principles that underpin a human-centric design philosophy we have shaped piece by piece.
The sculpture's artful balance of light and shadow is reflected through the hours of the day, while gold gathers the warmth of afternoon sun and silver returns the cool of the moon; the polished surface holds a steady image of the room, and the form comes from knucklebones, one of the oldest games on record, played by hand on floors and tabletops. Put it down any way at all: three prongs find the surface, three rise, and it stands. On a desk or a shelf, Tali turns that philosophy into something you can hold: minimalism that is quiet, tactile and lasting.
II. The Walls of Home
You and I both spend most of our time indoors. Our experience of everyday life is largely dependent on the man-made structures, materials and objects that form our modern habitat. The story of Tali's life can be felt and revealed between the walls of home (our place of sanctuary), at our work desks, restaurant tables, and within the greater infrastructure of the city. Just like the weather, the atmosphere Tali builds has a profound effect on how we rest, think, feel, work, eat and socialize.
Tali follows one design criterion: spaces and objects must certainly be functional, but if Tali is to truly serve us, it must also attend to our bodies and emotions. At this moment, designing Tali, we believe it's necessary to go beyond strict Rationalist and Modernist doctrines and help its owner resensualize the built environment with a feeling that embraces the whole human being and addresses our perception of space and all our sensory faculties. This requires slowing down the process to consider design from the perspective of human experience and sources of meaning, so each piece takes 3 to 5 days in the artisan's hands before it ships. To us, crafting Tali well must transcend utility and aesthetics to become a sensual and social exercise: to create a framework for essential human needs of safety, identity, belonging and purpose.
III. Soft Minimalism
Our process of designing and making Tali is guided by the body and mind rather than by trends or technology: we aim to create designs that not only look good but that also feel good. It is about accommodating the artisans who craft the work through empathic design, rather than treating customers as mere buyers of an aesthetic creation. We consider our work as a facilitation of well-being for our customers, as a distillation of aesthetics that resonate with the given person and place, and as a system that supports universal human needs. Each project we design, not Tali alone, is imbued with this intrinsic quality: a simplicity that carries bigger ideas.
We have dedicated the last 15 years to the pursuit of human-centric architecture and design, and project by project, have honed a philosophy and international design approach that we call 'Soft Minimalism.' With humility, we have built our ideas on thousands of years of aesthetic evolutions and on the incredible insights of master artisans and designers working before us and beside us. These lessons merge with those we have learned along the way and with the influences of our Scandinavian context. Our hope is to offer a chapter in the story of designs like Tali, which will continue to be written far into the future.
IV. The Hours
Natural light is a dynamic force that expresses itself differently by place and by moment. To work with natural light is to work with time, and to welcome the minute shifts occurring constantly throughout the day.
Tali's two finishes answer different hours. Polished gold holds the warm end of the day: low afternoon sun crossing a shelf gathers on it as a small warm point, and lamplight keeps it glowing softly through the evening. Polished silver holds the cool end: gray morning light, or the pale light of a moon through the window, both come back off it cool and pale. Same form, two times of day.
V. Three Points
The spaces we surround ourselves with become an extension of our bodies and moods. Just as we close our eyes, we draw the curtains to block out the world and retreat into ourselves; when stress overwhelms us, we declutter our surroundings to reinstate order. If we want to change ourselves, we change the space around us.
Tali gives the hand one more of those gestures. Pick it up in the middle of a slow afternoon, turn it over, set it down without looking. However it comes to rest, three prongs find the table and carry it, and three point up. There is no wrong way to put it down; the sculpture spends the rest of the day standing exactly as it landed.
VI. The Years
Things made to serve the style of a single season struggle to stay relevant; once the novelty wears off, trend-based designs are in danger of becoming relics. Good design is aware of time: it keeps us in synch with the days, seasons and eras, present now and mindful that nothing is forever.
A jack runs no such risk. The shape has already outlived the empires that played it, and it left a mark on their buildings too: the slim molding near the top of a classical column is called an astragal, after the Greek name for the anklebone the game began with. Tali carries the same shape onward, and the metal asks for one thing across the years: a soft, dry cloth, now and then.
The books underneath
Forms need a little ground to stand apart from what surrounds them. Three hardcover display books lift Tali clear of the shelf: take the set for $39 once your cart includes Tali.
The discount applies automatically at checkout.
VII. Designer: Kacper Niezabitowski
Tali is the second piece Kacper Niezabitowski has made for The Soft Minimal, after Lapilli. A Polish architect and artist, he spent years alongside masters such as Vincent Van Duysen in Antwerp, and his work moves between two scales: buildings, and the small objects that live inside them, a dialogue of form, matter and stillness. He is drawn to the raw honesty of materials and to how light meets a geometric volume.
For Kacper, design is a language of silence. He treats the physical weight of an object as a way of steadying the mind, making pieces that invite a person to pause and breathe, and to find clarity in a world that keeps moving. Tali is that intention at desk scale: one geometric form, polished until the room shows on its surface, standing on three points.
Specifications
Dimensions
Large: 15 x 15 x 15 cm (5.9 x 5.9 x 5.9 in). Small: 11 x 11 x 11 cm (4.3 x 4.3 x 4.3 in).
Material
Polished metal, mirror finish.
Finish
Gold or Silver.
Care and FAQ
Care
A soft, dry cloth is all the surface needs. Wipe the prongs now and then; nothing more is required.
Large stands 15 cm, 5.9 inches, tall and holds its own on a console or an open shelf. Small is 11 cm, 4.3 inches, the desk and bedside size. Both come in gold and silver.
No. The six prongs spread from the center so that three always touch the surface and three face upward, however it comes down. It stands steady on those three points.
Polished metal, finished to a mirror. Gold and silver are two finishes of the same form.
Each piece takes 3 to 5 business days to craft, then 7 to 14 business days in transit.
No. Duties and taxes are already included; the checkout price is the final price.
Yes, within 14 days of delivery, in its original packaging.
THE ESSENCE OF
SOFT MINIMAL
Our philosophy is rooted in the belief that beauty must serve your well-being. Unlike rigid minimalism, our approach informed by Nordic discipline and Japanese tranquility seeks to amplify warmth and tranquility through restraint.
Every sculpture is crafted not just to look beautiful, but to feel right. We honor the tactile effect of natural materials and the artful balance of light and shadow, ensuring our pieces act as a meditative anchor in your space.
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