New York City. May 22, 2019. Greetings, friends, and welcome to spring and the pre-Las Vegas trade show season! CPAA members who will be participating in next week’s Las Vegas shows (click here for fairs, dates, and CPAA members who will be exhibiting) are busy pulling together new collections and fresh cultured loose pearl and strand finds, but you can get a peek at what will be on display by checking out the CPAA 2019 supplement. It bagged with the May issue of Instore magazine again, and copies will also be available at some of the shows. See the entire issue online here.

A behind-the-scenes look at the 2019 supplement in the making! First we shoot pearls at the studio of Ted Morrison. We pull in a lot of pretty options!!

Natural-color blue akoyas from Baggins

This year’s theme was Color Your World in Pearls to help paint a vivid picture of many of the different types of pearls available. Art props like the wooden palette on the cover and colored pencils and brushes gently helped to drive home the messaging of pearls as colorful masterpieces. And from cultured metallic freshwaters to natural (not cultured) bubble-gum-pink conchs to natural-color cultured blue akoyas and more, CPAA had a lot of pretty pearl options to display. And that’s not even including the multicolor and variety cultured pearl strands (see pages 3 and 7) or specialty pearls like those grown in Mexico and Fiji, the last which are not featured in print but will written about online over the summer.

Did you know there were this many types of akoyas?

Several similar-looking strands of South Sea pearls in ombré shades. Each shot for each page in the supplement is pre-planned by yours truly, the art director Todd Gast, and our photographer Ted Morrison.

Once again, we relied on still-life photographer Ted Morrison to shoot our creative images, including the cover, and award-winning art director Todd Gast to brainstorm creative effects and lay out the publication in a memorable manner. Goals accomplished—we couldn’t be happier with this year’s product, which was printed on even better paper stock than last year. To wit, the pearls popped even more! CPAA also kept the pricing low and the same sum as last year, which was drastically lower than years past.

Admiring Ted's handiwork on set

We shot the pearls for Hanadama's ad at Lenflash studio,
which we use for simple shots on white.

Members who purchase ads in this completely staff-produced (by yours truly, a longtime award-winning journalist, and Kathy Grenier, marketing and public relations director) publication pay only for the costs of physical production—no creative fees are charged. This helps keep costs super low and makes the supplement a true member benefit.

The cover of the 2019 CPAA supplement

Table of Contents

Welcome Letter

Opener page to one of the articles

Tahitian page in the feature article

Foundation Member and Benefactor page

Back page--this is what's called a cover wrap

Click here to see the entire supplement!

Have a suggestion or want to take part in a future publication? Please reach out to me at jheebner@cpaa.org or kathyspearl@gmail.com. We’ll be delighted to talk to you about the benefits of CPAA membership and how to take part in future creative efforts.