A year ago we decided to feature Portraits of people who inspire us— foodies, artists, designers and people who go about their work in a provocative way. We hired the talented filmmaker, Jordan Kinley, to help us bring these Portraits to life (although, I can’t say the same for the pig).

Of course, finding people who inspire us is not difficult; we’re surrounded by them and follow their work every day. Our challenge, at Nau, is to be able to capture the very essence of what makes these visionaries so extraordinary, and bring it to you in a three-minute vignette.

This Spring, we decided to take the Provocateur series a bit deeper by asking the hard questions and listening to what they had to say. The result? Three people and three unique perspectives that might change the way you view things…It did for us.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll launch three Portraits: Allison Arieff, NY Times blogger; Drummond Lawson, the Green Giant at Method; and Sean Carasso, founder of Falling Whistles.

To kick off the series, here’s a little bit about Allison Arieff, our first Spring Portrait:

Allison Arieff – Writer, Visionary + Food Advocate

Allison is one of the original founders of Dwell magazine, a blogger for the New York Times, a food advocate, and an impressive gardener and mom.  She welcomed us into her home for the Portrait shoot last month on what was possibly the rainiest day in San Francisco’s history.

Over the course of several hours, we learned what has inspired her over the years and how her outlook on design and positive change has evolved throughout her career.  Her perspective on design and what the design community needs in order to evolve both enlightened and surprised us.

Her Portrait takes place in her sunroom which is currently being renovated.  Surrounded by stormy weather and a raw interior, she brings light to what could be considered a harsh environment, a perfect metaphor for how we view Allison’s role in the changing world of sustainable design.

Learn more about Allison’s view on design here. And, to see more jewelry like the necklace she’s wearing in her Portrait, visit kirstenmuenster.com.

How do you raise €22M to build an environmental battle ship? Greenpeace has an innovative answer: Sell the boat off piece-by-piece, allowing donors to connect emotionally and financially to the cause.

Thanks to a brilliant feat of web design, the new Rainbow Warrior has wind in its sails, with 32.9% of the construction already funded. The website not only tells the story of the ship’s history in a dramatic way, but also lets you virtually navigate through its plans, “browsing” the items you can fund from a €1 fork to €7,000 desalinater.

Another great feature is a time-lapse video of the ship’s construction progress, showing that the end result is tangible and that you, as a part owner, are steps closer to launching your vessel for change.

Found via CoolHunting

Japan is facing a monumental challenge in the wake of last week’s earthquake, tsunami and the resulting volatility of several nuclear power plants. In times like these, we ask ourselves what we can do. Several artists/craftspeople have started to contribute by donating proceeds from the sale of their work to relief efforts. A few of our favorites are displayed above (top to bottom):

Corter Leather | For Japan Bracelet | $20 to benefit the Red Cross

Wall Space Gallery | Bunny Face by Stella Kalaw | $50 to benefit Direct Relief International and Habitat for Humanity (see complete Life Support Japan collection)

W+K Studio | Help Japan Poster Series | Minimum $25 donation to benefit the Red Cross

Michael Rubenstein | Selected Prints to Help Japan | $100-$150 to benefit Japan Relief Efforts

Grant Cornett | Prints via TheLivest1.com (scroll down) | $50 to benefit the Red Cross

Will smart design put the first step to better air quality—awareness of an invisible problem—in our own hands (or on our chests)? We hope so.

We all know that Portland is a marvelously green city. So green is the haze around here, in fact, that most residents are oblivious to the offensive air quality caused by industrial waste. Two years ago, USA Today published an in-depth article called The Smokestack Effect that looked at the impact of industrial pollution on children, particularly those who attend schools near factories that emit toxic chemicals. The results were shocking: higher rates of cancer, mental problems and respiratory disease seemed to tie directly to a school’s proximity to polluters. And even more shocking was the fact that Northwest Portland is in the lowest 2 percentile of air quality in the nation. (A form on the website allows you to check how your neighborhood ranks.)

Our office is in the Pearl District of Northwest Portland, around a mile from Portland’s worst culprits for air pollution. We have kids who attend school in the neighborhood. So the question is, what can we do? Read More »

This week our textile guru, Jamie Bainbridge reveals the ingredients to the ultimate  “fabric sandwich” and dives deep into the knitty gritty of dot matrix lamination. As our fabric goddess (part scientist, part artiste), she has had a hand in every style we make.  Prepare to get smart…

For Spring, we have a few new fabrics that we’re introducing, like in the Gust Wind Shirt….

Jamie Bainbridge: That’s a 2-ply woven fabric that is actually two separate fabrics that are woven together in spots. So it’s a like a two-layer sandwich of fabric that is 100% recycled polyester. It has a yarn-dyed plaid on one side and a yarn-dyed check on the other side.

What about the Wafer Pullover? It’s so incredibly lightweight.

The fabric for our men’s and women’s Wafer Pullover is a very fine gauge knit recycled poly. In fact, the machinery that produces this knit probably came around about ten years ago. It’s the finest gauge knit you can do, making a very wind-resistant and tight face to the fabric. But you can still get a lot of stretch out of it – it’s a 4-way stretch – because it’s a knit. Read More »

One man’s mission to share food, and love, with the poor in Chennai (formerly Madras, and India’s fifth largest city). Inspiration in this season of giving.

Here’s a true story that Jamie, our director of textile development and sustainability, told me today:

Back in 2008, Darrell Meyers, an associate at a Wal-Mart in North Carolina, was on a break and noticed that in all the vending machines in the break room were lit up. Inside each one, he realized, there was a light bulb sucking power 24 hours a day. He thought about how much electricity was wasted and wondered how much money the company could save by taking the lights out of all the vending machines.

Now, while Wal-Mart may catch a lot of flack for many things, missing an opportunity to save money isn’t one of them. So when Darrell’s idea got back to corporate headquarters, they ran some numbers and figured out that Wal-Mart could save more than $1 million every year by taking out the bulbs. One million dollars.

You can find all that proudly trumpeted on WalMart’s own site. What they don’t mention are the energy savings. A 25 watt bulb on 24-hours a day, running on coal-generated electricity, will result in around 460lbs of CO2 being released into the atmosphere per year per bulb. A back-of-the-envelope calculation (four bulbs per machine, 4 machines per Wal-Mart, 8,400 Wal-Marts) would suggest that just unplugging those bulbs reduced Wal-Mart’s carbon footprint by some 61.8 million pounds of CO2.

So what does that tell us? Wal-Mart didn’t make this change to save the planet; they did it to save money. But they only really noticed it because they’re big enough to save a million dollars by unplugging some bulbs. However, that doesn’t mean the same kind of numbers-based thinking doesn’t apply to us as individuals. While things like changing your lightbulbs (or, another great example, sealing your windows) may seem less sexy than solar panels and hybrid cars, they are far more impactful, and scale far more quickly. It’s the low hanging fruit, and it’s time we picked it.

By now you’ve surely seen Volkswagen’s “Fun Theory” videos, like the piano staircase and the subway kiddie slide to encourage people to avoid the escalator. Well, the winner of their contest has been announced, and it’s yet another great example of how designing positive incentives—a carrot, not just a stick—can change our behavior for the better. Check it out.

(via The Curious Brain)

[This week, as part of Nau's pledge to donate 10% of sales on nau.com to our Partners For Change, The Thought Kitchen is pleased to share a collection of guest posts from our Partner organizations. Today's guests are Carlene Deits and Minda Seibert at Mercy Corps. -Ed.]

Mercy Corps is fortunate to be a Nau ”Partner for Change” since 2007.  Through the  patronage and generosity of Nau’s customers, Nau has donated over $40,000 to Mercy Corps and our ”Where Needed Most” programs which address critical global issues and support our overall mission. Nau recognizes that Mercy Corps is a catalyst for positive, lasting change and has graciously encouraged their customers to help make our work possible. Nau and their community’s donations have impacted some of the world’s toughest places.

When conflict or disaster strikes, families suffer.  People lose their homes,  businesses and livelihoods; they must start again from nothing. For 30 years in places suffering from economic collapse, political transitions, armed conflict and natural disasters, Mercy Corps has been empowering millions of individuals, families and entire communities  to  turn crises into opportunities for long-term change.  We know that societies become stronger when citizens are actively involved in decision-making, so Mercy Corps creates safe spaces where communities can discuss solutions to the biggest challenges affecting their lives.

Donations to Mercy Corps open schools, start small businesses and establish peace in places scarred by conflict. Your support helps hard-working people rebuild their lives and homes. We are thankful to Nau for donating to Mercy Corps and giving us the ability to respond to disasters, to invest in innovative initiatives that maximize the value of our expertise, and to work in places where need is greater than donor interest.

Both Mercy Corps staff headquartered in Portland and international staff around the world know the value of partnerships with globally aware and socially conscious companies like Nau.  On behalf of the Mercy Corps family and the people we serve in 40 countries, we truly appreciate your charitable support of the Nau-Mercy Corps partnership and for allowing change-oriented organizations to make a difference.

-Carlene Deits and Minda Seibert, Mercy Corps

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.