Wow. I can just imagine the assignment in preschool: Do a drawing about your dad and share it with the rest of the class.

Now, as a young dad myself, I can totally relate to this scenario. Of course I’d love for my son to immediately whip out the magic markers and illustrate my surf passion just like Kai, the son of our friend Mark Hoffman, did a few weeks ago. In my dreams, the picture would be of a grizzled version of myself screaming down the face of a giant north coast bomb. Fearless. Unshakable.

But when the subject of the piece is the angst that only a surfer who has recently given up regular trips to the coast to be a good father knows, things get a bit bittersweet. Certainly my own son has heard me lament about sub-par surf conditions, plea for more water time, and while watching surf videos, pondered my answer to the question, “Can you do that, Dad?”

Of course, we hope that those little moments of bliss when you score a soft, long, perfectly formed left at Seaside hit home with the kids—or at the very least that fleeting feeling of freedom when you get a few hours away with friends and a few cold beers on the beach. But that’s a bit tougher to explain to a 5-year-old.

Kai’s dad is half of the directing duo, The Hoffman Brothers, and the auteur behind the Nau short video Spring Runoff.

Ever since I was young, I’ve been fascinated by maps. As a child, I would raid my parents’ dusty collection of National Geographics, wallpapering my room with the muted browns and greens and blues of their intricate borders and shaded topography. Perhaps the impulse to live among those maps was an early manifestation of the wanderlust that’s kept me on the move since leaving home, or possibly the maps themselves are to blame for my desire to see the places they represented. Either way, while those maps are long gone, the fascination continues: today, whether it’s Google maps or a historical print, show me a map and I fall into the contours of its coastlines, the mazes of its metropolitan streets.

More recently, I’ve begun collecting maps from the places I lived. So when I stumbled across Studio MKO’s beautiful cut-out maps of American and International cities, my only disappointment was that they hadn’t yet done Portland. Fortunately, they also offer this beautiful (if less mind-blowingly intricate) series of pen & ink city maps, including a wide selection of cities—including Stumptown.

See the entire collection at Supermarket.

An amusing parody from designer Lunchbreath, lampooning so much of what passes for ’social responsibility’ and ‘environmental stewardship’ in the corporate world. Just a reminder to dig a little deeper when someone tells you they’re doing good things with your money.

Of course, when you order from nau.com, you get to decide where 2% of the purchase price goes. To learn about the (not vague at all) group of non-profit partners Nau donates 2% of every sale to (none of which have line-items for mistresses, escorts or dominatrices), check out our Partners For Change: they’re the real deal.

(Also, be sure to check out Lunchbreath’s other stuff, including the fantastic Killer Jellyfish of Graphic Design Favors. Those of you with illustrator CS5 open 14 hours a day will appreciate it.)

(via Treehugger)

Collective Snapshot

The results are in, and this month’s winner of Collective Snapshot is Jessica Helvey, whose quiet pic of tea and journaling in Iceland captures the quiet pleasures of late fall—whether in the Pacific Northwest or North Atlantic—when the rain returns and forces us inside:

“We traveled to iceland last year and could not do without tea and the nau down shirts….perfection! 120 film, and very out of focus, it was too early in the morning…excuses excuses.”

No excuses neccessary, Jessica. For sharing our favorite pic this month, Jessica wins a new Down Vest, plus a mounted print of her image from our friends at Plywerk. Didn’t win but still want to mount your image on a beautiful eco-conscious bamboo or maple panel? Check out Plywerk’s website at www.plywerk.com to upload and order, or buy blank panels and D.I.Y. Of course, you can always enter another image for a shot to win by emailing a pic of you or a friend to share@nau.com.

One Of Us

As for our Monthly Trivia, in October we asked you: Nau’s new pop-up shop in New York is on Howard at the end of which other street?

This month’s winner? Shelly Zimmer, who we selected at random from all the people who correctly answered Crosby Street. For her geographic savy, Shelly wins a Down Vest, perfect for keeping warm on the wind-swept cobbles of Soho.

Want a chance to win our monthly trivia contest? You’ll have to know the question, and to do that, you’ll need to read Off The Grid—so subscribe today!

Have you caught the film profiles accompanying Nau’s new portrait series, The Provacateurs? Going behind the scenes of photographer Eden Batki’s location shoots, filmmakers Thomas Oliver and Jordan Strong capture the subjects of this seasons portraits at work. Check out the first four profiles, launched last week at nau.com, or have a look at these two new clips, which just dropped Tuesday:

What’s not to love about Daniel Sharp? We first hired him to shoot with us three years ago, and he’s been the principal photographer for Nau ever since. His photos are spontaneous and real, smart and unfettered, which, we’ve found, is a lot like him.

Designer by day, cyclist all the time, Shannon Holt doesn’t draw a line between her work and her play. After designing a cycling jersey four years ago that spun the notion of cycling attire on its head (goodbye corporate logos), a new anti-brand was born.

You can find all of Nau’s Portraits at nau.com: Men’s here, Women’s here.

Kind of says it all. Pick up the poster here.

Beautiful meditation on photography, surfing, and the passion to combine the two in a single life.

(via Sissyfish)

A week ago, Brett and Edie got married. Three days later, they set out from our home of Portland, Oregon back to their home of Brooklyn, NY, aside a matching pair of neon pink and yellow Independent Fabrications bikes. Today, they’re somewhere east of Pomeroy, WA.

Pedaling across the country might not be everyone’s idea of a perfect honeymoon, but these two seem up to the challenges that 60-100 mile days with loaded panniers present. After all, covering that distance is one thing; having the wherewithall to upload erudite posts every evening afterward? That’s tough.

See where they are today on kissingwithhelmets.com

(via Rapha)

60 seconds to cool you off on a hot July day.

At Nau, we’ve always asked our designs to do more than just one thing. The idea that a single jacket should be able to move from the bike to the office to the bar was one of the original design principles that we launched with, and it carries through the execution of pieces like the Chrysalis Dress, the Vice Blazer and many others.

So we were interested to learn of a few folks who are taking the idea doing more with less a bit further. Today, a group of ninety-six people from around the world began an experiment to see what happens when you pare down your wardrobe to just six items. The project, Six Items Or Less, has exceptions for underwear, workout clothing and raincoats; but even so, pledging to go a month with just a handful of clothes poses some interesting questions about our relationship to what we wear.

Of course, there are plenty of people around the world who get by on fewer than six items for much longer than a month. But in our culture of ready to wear and disposable fashion, it’s interesting to challenge the assumption that we need a closet full of clothes. But more than a post-consumerist statement, pairing back might have other, more personal impacts as well: Kimberly, who turned us on to this site, also sent along this post from one of Six Items or Less founder, alias Uberblond, on how the designer Tom Ford, among others, would pick one outfit to wear for a season so he could focus on designing. Is it possible that what we wear is less about self expression and more about self-distraction?

What do you think? Could you get by on six items for a month? A year? Follow the experiment at sixitemsorless.com, and post what you’d pick for your six items in the comments below.

(hat tip to Kimberly F)