Branding Design Product Design Business & Marketing Strategy

Saudi Arabia, Safeguarding A Cultural Narrative

Taleed is a consortium of companies that came together to safeguard the tangible and intangible cultural assets of our Kingdom. As a founding partner in this consortium, we aimed to capture & preserve the historical cultural narratives of our Kingdom that connect people and create understanding, tolerance and a love for diversity; through the organization of initiatives and creation of products and technologies that build awareness, share knowledge, form cultural experiences, and document various types of cultural assets.

The Challenge

Safeguarding cultural assets begins with the creation of cultural inventory. We needed to carry out a cultural canvas across Saudi Arabia by visiting cultural sites, conducting research and activating the community to help us in the identification process. After verifying the information collected, we needed to begin the process of creating dialogue, engaging the cultural community both in Saudi Arabia and overseas, and designing products and experiences that reflect our heritage, connect to people and live up to Taleed’s promise of making every cultural narrative relevant to its authors.

The Process

We began our process with the creation of the Taleed brand, which needed to speak to people and have values rooted in the Kingdom’s rich cultural past. We used geometric shapes from across Saudi Arabia and retranslated them to become part of the brand’s visual DNA. We used white and black colors to exemplify intangible and tangible cultural aspects respectively.

We then directed our focus to the ecosystem that would enable us to identify, capture and register cultural inventory. UNESCO determines potential cultural assets and then uses crowdsourcing to decide which to register. Through a more human-centric approach, we reversed the process and developed platforms through which individuals could upload what they believed to be culturally significant, and through people’s reactions, determine what would proceed to the verification stage.

In this ecosystem, we also included cultural events. Whether it was a global symposium or a platform for facilitating workshops, this was an implementation of our belief that cultural preservation, promotion and advancement can only be achieved through collaboration and when culture is shared. Taking this principle further, we designed products which could commercialize Saudi culture, sharing it with the world.

The Experience

We were able to curate pathways through which cultural regeneration could take place, using innovation and creativity, expression and retranslation and dialogue and knowledge-sharing, while using accredited methodologies and world-renowned expertise. The platforms we designed classified cultural inventory into 13 categories, such as food and fashion, and the data collected could be in various formats. It would then go though a 3-stage verification process where it would be checked by university students, then culture professionals and finally culture experts. If successfully verified, it would be published in our digital cultural archive, which, at its front-end would be accessible to all as a cultural search engine for the Kingdom and a valuable resource for anyone wanting to learn about Saudi culture.

Taleed has not only been a way for us to share Saudi culture with others, but it has also been a way for us to get better acquainted with our own identity. Through Taleed’s activities, Saudi youth can gain cultural skills and expertise, and aid in the development of the Saudi cultural industry. After all, by better understanding our past we can be better prepared for our future.

“We are unified in our diversity.”
‍
HRH Princess Haifa Bint Faisal Al Saud, Founder & Chairwoman, Taleed

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