Perfumer Heather Sielaff hand-blends idiosyncratic, mostly masculine scents for her label OLO Fragrance in her apartment in north Portland. "I'm not really girly," she admits, and her perfumes tend to be intriguing rather than sweetly attractive. For example, For]]> http://workflowfreelance.com/853147/olo-fragrance.php/feed 0 http://workflowfreelance.com/847916/beam-anchor.php http://workflowfreelance.com/847916/beam-anchor.php#comments Tue, 08 May 2012 19:18:50 +0000 Adrienne So http://workflowfreelance.com/?guid=b417530a02b5bf6922b3a51a74c46e4f Likeminded artisans gather in a collaborative workspace in Portland… For some people, the constant rattling of trains outside their window might be irritating. But for Beam & Anchor co-founders Robert and Jocelyn Rahm, it sounded just right. "I grew up]]> Likeminded artisans gather in a collaborative workspace in Portland

For some people, the constant rattling of trains outside their window might be irritating. But for Beam & Anchor co-founders Robert and Jocelyn Rahm, it sounded just right. "I grew up in a small town in Missouri," said Robert. "The trains sound like home."

For years the Rahms had dreamed of opening a collaborative workshop for a dedicated community of likeminded artisans. The first step was finding the appropriate space, which they did in a beloved, but neglected, warehouse in the heavily industrial north Portland neighborhood of Albina. Surrounded by ...

The issue of aluminum-based, fragrance-added deodorant poses a problem for those with allergies or sensitivity, or anyone averse to the chemicals required to fight sweat and odor. If we still lived in a nomadic hunter-gatherer society, our personal scents would identify us to our tribe, but unfortunately, that kind of natural state isn't always a viable option. Anyone who has experimented with alternatives has likely discovered that most natural deodorants, baby powder and crystals are comically ineffective.

That's why we were thrilled to discover Soapwalla Kitchen deodorant cream. Gently scented with lavender and ...

The seemingly surprising collaboration between Portland's Ampersand Gallery and Swedish workwear company Dunderdon came about in a wholly organic fashion. Les Szabo, a long-time Portland resident and the owner of Dunderdon USA, walked into Ampersand one day and simply liked the way it looked.

"We started talking about a collaboration back in October, but it wasn't until this spring that we began to formalize what was going to happen," says Ampersand owner Myles Haselhorst. Last week, Haselhorst traveled from Portland to install an ...

In an effort to become more than just a shopping destination, Core's flagship store, Hand-Eye Supply in downtown Portland, Oregon has taken the standard catalog to an artful new level.

Photographer Christine Taylor is a long-time friend of Hand-Eye Supply manager Tobias Berblinger, and when she learned he was making a new catalog for the store—a project that would likely result in the requisite bland product displays and posed models—she proposed an alternative. Taylor enlisted Berblinger to instead round up local artisans, cooks and craftspeople, and she took portraits of ...

Brooke Weeber's delicate, darkly humorous watercolor-and-ink illustrations are one part Wes Anderson, one part Edward Gorey. Fantastical wolves and deer roam freely through pastel-tinted clouds and trees, sharing space with bearded strongmen and booze. Though the Northwest native admits that she's a huge fan of Anderson, she cites Greek and Native American art as her primary influence.

"I love the simple line figures painted onto vases and sewn into tapestries, and the use of geometric shapes and patterns [in Greek and Native American art]," says Weeber. "They also ...

A first look at Liza Rietz designs does not immediately confirm if they're clothes or sculptures. Even on the hanger, layers of silk, wool and linen flow out in broad planes, making soft points in the delicate fabric. On a model, the clothes seem to float above and around the body. "I've always been fascinated by the sculptural qualities of fabric," Rietz told CH in an interview at her studio. "I suppose that's why they look like origami. That's the art of manipulating two dimensions into three dimensions."

Despite her ...

A lot of artists might think twice about issuing a retrospective before they reach 30. But the young Canadian graphic designer Julien Vall]]> http://workflowfreelance.com/773726/rock-paper-scissors-by-julien-vallee.php/feed 0 http://workflowfreelance.com/751160/woodblock-chocolate.php http://workflowfreelance.com/751160/woodblock-chocolate.php#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:30:22 +0000 Adrienne So http://workflowfreelance.com/?guid=ab4c7e9e154fe3d78478f7e15e0b443a Portland's micro-chocolatiers with a knack for DIY innovation… A few years ago in the DIY paradise of Portland, Oregon, Jessica and Charley Wheelock began cultivating an idea. If home brewers and coffee roasters were dotting the national food scene with]]> Portland's micro-chocolatiers with a knack for DIY innovation

A few years ago in the DIY paradise of Portland, Oregon, Jessica and Charley Wheelock began cultivating an idea. If home brewers and coffee roasters were dotting the national food scene with successful independent businesses, why were there so few independent artisanal chocolate makers? The two cobbled together repurposed coffee and grain equipment together with information culled from the Internet, starting Woodblock Chocolate a little over a year ago.

"Even Theo and Scharffen Berger are massive compared to what we're doing," said Charley on a recent sunny afternoon in his kitchen in ...

As the daughter of an art photographer, it never occurred to Skye Parrott to take up photography as a career herself. Though she grew up around cameras, Parrott thought she was going to major in political science. "I thought I was going to law school."

Instead, Parrott went to Paris. After a few internships and a stint as managing editor at Self Service magazine, her outlook changed and she began working as Nan Goldin's Paris studio manager. The legendary chronicler of New York subculture acted as both ...

New York-based architect Andrew Burdick may not produce work with the flashy curves of a Gehry or distinguish himself with an iconic style like Meier's glassy minimalism. Instead, Burdick lets the nature of each specific challenge dictate the project's eventual form, harnessing the unique set of issues into beautifully-functional outcomes.

One elegant example, a sports complex, increases the amount of usable space by simply elevating one end of the park. A subterranean soccer field and swimming pool tucked under this ingenious wedge doubles the amount of usable space. "For me, ...

Charlie Melcher is, in his own words, a man of eclectic tastes. With a hand in some of pop culture's most influential phenomena, from "South Park: A Sticky Forms Adventure" to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," Melcher has been redefining the publishing industry since graduating from Yale University in 1988. Conceptualizing projects like Madonna's controversial "Sex" book is practically old hat to Melcher, who spearheaded the tome when he was with Calloway Editions. The progressive publisher explains the choice was obvious, "Madonna was going to get naked in an amazing book of erotica. What was not to like?"

Melcher worked his way up the ranks after college, re-launching what he'd called Melcher Press as Melcher Media in '94, where he patented the technology behind DuraBooks. Waterproof, synthetic paper made of nontoxic resins and inorganic materials instead of wood pulp, the infinitely recyclable pages make for ideal beach reads or field guides. The technology also came into play for William McDonough and Michael Braungart's environmentalist design manifesto, "Cradle to Cradle." Like Melcher, the game-changing book preaches a new kind of industrial sustainability—one that incorporates eco-consciousness from the ground up.

From the ground up is exactly how Melcher Media approaches all of its projects, shepherding a new publication from its inception through various print and digital incarnations. Working on "An Inconvenient Truth," Melcher took Al Gore's next project one step further, developing iPhone and iPad apps called "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis." The richly-colored pages, filled with interactive infographics, animations, maps and documentary footage, are all accessible with a swipe of a finger.

"For the last 20 years, I've labored to break out of the confines of the two- dimensional Flatland of the printed page and redefine books as multi-sensory interactive experiences," Melcher said. The phrase that he uses, "deep marketing," is a type of marketing that creates a unique, immersive experience that a reader will seek out on his own, which can range from reading a DuraBook in a bubble bath to flipping through maps of Africa on the iPad while on the train to work.

If working on Gore's books wasn't enough of an indication, Melcher also exercises his strong interest in sustainability with his position on the advisory committee for Green Press Initiative and FSC certification for Melcher Media. Clients like HBO and MTV may seem off-brand, but Melcher insists, "The projects that we do are all things that I, or my staff, are personally passionate about. We love high culture and low culture. If it is [a book on] a serious subject, we try to find approaches that will make it as impactful and appealing to as large an audience as possible, and if it's a pop culture project we try to find the angles that will make the most high-quality and innovative version available."

As Melcher Media's website points out, books have basically remained the same since the invention of the Gutenberg Press. If phones and other communication devices have to keep updating themselves, there's no reason why this venerable technology should have to stay the same. "Pop-up books for adults, books with sound chips and 3-D glasses and now interactive media-rich apps are all examples of an effort to reinvent the book in the digital age."

The Audi Icons series, inspired by the all-new Audi A7, showcases 16 leading figures united by their dedication to innovation and design.

Equal parts programmer and musician, Tristan Perich graduated from Columbia University in 2004 and went on to earn a masters at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts' Interactive Telecommunications program in 2007. While the interdisciplinary nature of ITP encourages a student body full of artists, programmers, theorists and less easily classifiable types, there's nothing confusing about Perich's work today. Designing code to create music or art, his aesthetic is about putting logic on the surface for a visceral effect, where people can see and understand it.

"Technology is abstracting these processes more and more these days," Perich said in a recent interview with Cool Hunting. "Take my iPhone. You brush a finger across a piece of glass. We're so detached from what's actually happening that the computation itself seems almost magical. These are the sorts of things that make their way into my work—the transparency of a circuit. It's all laid out there in front of you."

Perhaps the best example of this is Perich's elegant and attractive 1-Bit Symphony. Perich composed five movements, programmed a microchip, and installed it into a CD jewel case complete with headphone jack. The result is beautifully simple—rather playing back a recording, the circuit plays the entire score live when you turn it on. You can hold a symphony in the palm of your hand.

Of course, the one-bit buzzing doesn't sound anything like a violin, and for some, the score might recall the Super Mario Brothers more than Bach or Beethoven. For Perich, who was a classically trained musician, that's exactly the point. "I grew up playing the piano, and I hated other peoples' classical music,"; he said. He started improvising and then composing his own, for himself and later for ensembles, but he was most inspired by the work of minimalist musicians like Philip Glass. "[Glass's] work is very mathematical and sensitive; it almost lines up on a grid," Perich said. "It's a very digital way of thinking about music and harmony."

Perich composes music for both microchips and traditional instruments, like piano and violin. He also builds visual representations for the sound as well. In an installation called "Interval Studies," Perich built a board that consists of dozens of small speakers, each emitting a single one-bit tone from between a musical interval. "I took that frequency range and broke it up into 49 or 99 different slivers," said Perich. "As you move across the piece, you can hear each individual frequency, but when you step back, all the different frequencies resolve themselves into one pitch."

In his side project, Loud Objects, Perich combines the visual, musical and performance aspects of electronics and music. He and bandmates Kunal Gupta and Katie Shima begin with the blank glass of an overhead projector, soldering together chips in silence. At the end, a cacophony of sound signals that the circuit is complete. Adding chips can change the sound in different ways. "At the end, you've seen these components connected and understand how power is routed through microchips," Perich said.

Perich is also currently working on a much larger installation of "Interval Studies" for a Rhizome commission. He received the Prix Ars Electronica in 2009, and was a featured artist in 2010 at Sonar, the International Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art. For him, though, the best part of being an artist might not be sourcing speakers or performing in front of a rapt audience, but in actually doing the math.

"It's unfortunate that so many people get turned off math by bad teachers," he said. "I just find the foundations of mathematics to be really inspiring. Like how Turing was working with the limitations of math itself. I just find it to be really beautiful—visually, audibly, and in any other way."

The Audi Icons series, inspired by the all-new Audi A7, showcases 16 leading figures united by their dedication to innovation and design.

The work of Qu]]> http://workflowfreelance.com/699881/julien-vallee.php/feed 0 http://workflowfreelance.com/692655/leon-ransmeier.php http://workflowfreelance.com/692655/leon-ransmeier.php#comments Thu, 05 May 2011 19:38:35 +0000 Adrienne So A young minimalist takes on the challenge of designing for everyday life … A kind of Shaker simplicity marks the work of Leon Ransmeier, a beauty that results when an object is exactly what it's meant to be and nothing more.]]> A young minimalist takes on the challenge of designing for everyday life

A kind of Shaker simplicity marks the work of Leon Ransmeier, a beauty that results when an object is exactly what it's meant to be and nothing more. A humidifier is a pristine bucket filled with water; an extension cord wraps itself neatly around a flat white spool.

Some designs are, in fact, so pure of purpose that they can stump those of us surrounded by less thoughtful objects. When we asked if it was possible to get money out of bubble piggy bank—little more than a clear globe with a slot in it—without smashing the whole thing to bits, Ransmeier reminded us, "They were designed to save money, not spend it."

In spite of being a fresh 31-years-old, Ransmeier has already had a long time to consider form and purpose. His father is a ceramicist, and the young Ransmeier spent his childhood in a studio watching clay morph from paste to art, while learning how to make objects on his own. Focused on furniture design, after graduating from RISD in 2001, Ransmeier moved to the Netherlands with design partner and former girlfriend Gwendolyn Floyd.

In Eindhoven he founded Ransmeier Inc., but it was only after he and Floyd moved to Rotterdam and started Ransmeier & Floyd in 2005 that they began attracting serious interest. A dishwasher rack comprised of pliable polypropylene nubs, arranged algorithmically in density to hold spoons, knives and plates, was included in the 2006 National Design Triennial at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. They created products for Droog among many others.

"I was influenced and inspired by the Dutch approach to design that emerged in the 1990s, and I still believe that this devious and conceptual approach to design is an important chapter in history," said Ransmeier, referring to that definitively quirky, minimalist concept still on display at internationally renowned design stores like Moooi. He was lured back to NYC after a providential set of circumstances—"My visa was long expired"—and the offer of the creative directorship of design firm DBA, a firm he founded with partners Erik Wysocan and Patrick Sarkissian.

The term "DBA" is meant in the legal sense, as a placeholder for the greater number of hats that each member of the company wears—not only that of a designer, but that of environmentalists and civically-minded individuals. One of DBA's current products, the 98 Pen, is a simple black roller ball made at a wind-powered facility; another, the Endless Notebook, is 100% post-consumer waste, comprised of folded booklets slipped into a slim envelope. Perhaps a compostable pen seems like a relatively small tweak—still, taking into account the many toxic, plastic ones strewn across desks all over the United States, it might make more of a difference than you'd think.

"The issue with a lot of 'sustainable design' is that the focus is predominantly on the sustainability of the product without a strong focus on innovation or creating timeless, beautiful objects," Ransmeier said. Utility, beauty and sustainability aren't mutually exclusive goals, and focusing on one goal above the others is to the detriment of them all. "Creating objects that can be immediately dated as being a part of the 'sustainability trend' quickly makes them obsolete and inherently unsustainable."

In addition to designing, Ransmeier now takes time to teach—"At the moment I'm finishing up a semester at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, teaching an undergraduate industrial design class"—occasionally commuting from his NYC home to do so. “It's important to realize that industry and the man-made environment are not separate from what people perceive as 'nature', but are interdependent and inherently connected,” he continued. And simply and beautifully so, if Ransmeier had his way.

The Audi Icons series, inspired by the all-new Audi A7, showcases 16 leading figures united by their dedication to innovation and design.

Italian furniture designer Alessandra Baldereschi's work, while often surreal and usually ironic, is always completely functional. A moss chair lends a modernist form to an earthy material; a glass whale engulfs an indifferent fish. In her 2011 collection for Italian contemporary design company Skitsch shown recently at, Baldereschi gives the humble lawn chair a hefty dose of whimsy.

The FildeFer collection, practical, nostalgic and a little tongue-in-cheek, uses slim iron rods to deftly draw outlines of plush upholstery. Currently available in-store or by phone from Skitsch, it comes in gray, green, blue or white.

Fair Isle fans have long fetishized the winter staple, but Ellen Lesperance's upcoming exhibit at Seattle's Ambach & Rice Gallery explores the sweater as more than a cozy way to keep warm. Named "The Strong, Star-Bright Companions," after an elegiac poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the show features Lesperance's gouache paintings of sweaters worn by female activists, as well as three actual sweaters knitted by the artist herself—all rendered with precise attention to detail.

Lesperance painstakingly replicates the pattern and gauge of yarn in large paintings, piecing the whole pattern together from photographs into flattened-out diagrams. Much of her source material came from archival photos of the Greenham Commons Women's Peace Camp. For nineteen years, from 1981 to 2000, women camped out to protest the storage of nuclear missiles in Berkshire, England. While they waited, they knitted—incorporating their ideologies, in the form of fish and axes, into intricately innovative patterns. "I've been knitting for over 20 years. I used to work at Vogue Knitting in New York, and I'd never seen patterns like these," Lesperance said from her home in Portland, OR.

The exhibit also features the artist's tightly-gridded visions of sweaters worn by contemporary women, like Nawal el Saadawi, the famed Egyptian feminist activist. And Lesperance commemorates the darker side of activism in the form of triangle-shaped patterns that serve as death shrouds for activists who died in the line of duty, including Helen Thomas, who was driven over at Greenham Commons Women's Peace Camp, and Italian activist Pippa Bacca, who was raped and killed on a symbolic peace protest while hitchhiking to Jerusalem. "They were definitely maligned for being stupid young girls," said Lesperance. "There's definitely an interest in elevating them."

By memorializing and replicating these sweaters, Lesperance also lends a deeper resonance to the simple, utilitarian act of knitting a sweater. As Rosa Parks might have suggested, in the face of greater forces there's something very powerful about the act of sitting down, taking your time and creating a useful object of beauty. "Sweaters can be worn," said Lesperance. "You can stretch out the experience of being with the work. You could wear the sweaters for years, if you wanted to."

"The Strong, Star-Bright Companions" is on view through 15 May 2011 at Ambach & Rice.

Potential Prefontaines aside, most who run would be hard-pressed to find any grace or beauty in our daily jogs. And yet that's exactly what Nike+'s latest collaboration with interactive design firm YesYesNo accomplishes. Over two stunningly beautiful days on Nike's campus in Beaverton, Oregon, YesYesNo collected data from several runs (mine included), plotting them in a three-dimensional scale. The graphs incorporated speed, distance and acceleration, but also color and texture.

YesYesNo's projects range in size from the very large (i.e. the size of a building) to the very small. For example, the EyeWriter Initiative—in conjunction with the Graffiti Research Lab—tracks the movements of an eyeball in order to splash huge swathes of color and shape across buildings yards away. In this case, the whole of Nike's campus was to be our canvas.

“Imagine you were going to go on a run with a giant paintbrush strapped to your back,” YesYesNo co-founder Zachary Lieberman tried to explain as we prepared to start our run. Strapping on GPS-enabled sportwatches, we went on brisk jogs around the campus.

Once back (and showered), Lieberman and cofounder Theo Watson plugged in the data from our watches into computers. Once the data loaded, we were able to manipulate the color, texture and size of the images and rotate them on a 3-D axis. After saving the final result, we could do anything with the graphic created—print it on posterboard, or even laser-etch it on the top of a shoebox.

While the project is a long way away from commercial application (when we asked Nike+ about it, they said that that conversation hadn't even started yet), “The idea is that you take these tools back to your own cities and start collecting data wherever you are,” said Lieberman, the self-described "nerd artist." If getting healthier isn't enough of an incentive to stick to your daily jogs, perhaps creating artwork out of your efforts will be.

Bi-continental shoe company Nom&Ada is named after its two founders: The "nomadic" Rie Sawai in Tokyo and the "adaptable" Kimy Andrade in Portland, OR. The two met while studying design at Parsons in NYC and remained close friends after graduating in 2004. Five years later they met halfway between their two homes in Hawaii, and when inspiration struck over iced Kona coffee they decided to embark on a joint venture.

The duo recently launched their website and e-Boutique with their debut shoe, the "holoholo" moccasin. In Hawaiian, holoholo translates to "leisurely journey"—an apt name for the comfortable, casual riff on the classic T-strap sandal. Constantly on the move, Sawai and Andrade say they're inspired by their travels and nostalgia, and the crepe-soled sandals are perfect for airline travel, with a pair of tights, or for impromptu hikes on a sunny weekend after brunch.

Despite the great distance between the two business partners, Sawai and Andrade do their best to collaborate as much as possible. "The time difference definitely kills," they said—they even answer e-mails jointly—"but it makes the times that we do get to work together in the same location that much more special."

There are also advantages to having a close friend halfway around the world, saying "It adds different perspectives to our technical and creative process, and gives us an excuse to travel!" They chronicle their finds and inspirations on their blog, which they also write together. "Even though the majority of our conversation is business nowadays, we find a moment or two to catch up on girl talk," they said.

The crepe-soled leather sandals are handmade in Japan and come in black, white and camel—with the camel available with both white and flamingo stitching. They sell online for $260.

Portland, OR-based designer Aaron Draplin is the upshot of a stubborn dedication to chasing dreams. A role model for anyone with uncompromising passion who refuses to let social norms interfere with their goals, Draplin started his current career path from very humble beginnings—with a single graphic for the company Solid Snowboards. For the 19-year-old Midwestern refugee, landing the gig was a shock to his system. "Let me tell you, I lived off that $300 for months," he told CH. "It was the first building block in this new world that suddenly became clear in front of me. You can actually do this. For loot. For fun. For cool people."

The logistics of turning a distinctive vision into a paying career eluded Draplin for awhile, including one memorable summer in which he worked at a carnival. But a few years later, he packed up his gear and moved back to the middle of the country, obtaining a degree from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Soon after graduating, he was hired as the Art Director of Snowboarding Magazine in what he refers to as "Shithole, Southern California." Soon after, he moved to the much more accommodating climate of Portland, OR, and in 2004 began Draplin Design Company as an umbrella for his freelance projects.

Since then, he's cobbled together an impressive array of clients, including Burton, Ride, Forum Snowboards, Coal Headwear and Absinthe Films. With friend 
Jim Coudal, Draplin launched the now-ubiquitous Field Notes notebooks, modeled after the simple memo books he uses on the road. The productive designer also gives talks on contemporary graphic design and produces innumerable one-offs for events like this past weekend's "Push: Skatedeck Art Show" in Bend, OR.

Draplin's designs are characterized by a clean, bright, street-smart aesthetic that looks equally at home on a skateboard deck or letterhead. Besides a fearsome work ethic—"It only feels like work if I'm under the gun," Draplin says—he attributes his success to a simple philosophy: Do good work, for good people.

"I like to think of my target demographic as 'adventurous motherfuckers who love what they make, and are willing to roll the dice on the DDC'," he says. "That's been the goal all along: Work for the people you love. Nothing sucks more than hating the chump on the other end of the project. And I'm proud to say, there's only been a few of you over the years. You know who you are, fuckers."

Check out Draplin's work and online shop on his website.

Just because a designer is local—whether in Austin, TX or Florence, Italy—doesn't necessarily mean the garments were made there—or even in the same country. Thanks to fast fashion, there's now a better-than-likely chance that even such smaller-batch production was outsourced to Asia. "Of course it's deceptive, to say that clothes were made in the United States when they were really made in China," said Britt Howard, founder and co-owner of the Portland Garment Factory. "Like clothes that say they're made in Italy, when they're only hand-finished there. Or they'll sew the buttons on."

Howard, a mother of two and sometime model, discovered this gap in the American indie production process in 2008 after trying and failing to find a local manufacturer for her line of baby clothing. She opened a tiny storefront to sew for Portland's growing legion of independent designers (that includes three competitors and two winners of the reality show Project Runway) and two years, more than a few eighty-hour work weeks, and a business partner (Rosemary Robinson) later, PGF is now a booming enterprise. Today, the upstart completes orders for clients as far-flung as New York and Los Angeles in an airy new warehouse space in Portland's bustling Montavilla neighborhood.

"It's been like, zero to sixty for us," Robinson described. "We're thinking about opening another location, maybe in San Francisco or Austin. But we'd want to keep it personal, to be able to keep that close relationship with the people we work with."

And being a local manufacturer does enable PGF to have a more involved relationship with their clients. As their motto says, "We got your back." Unlike overseas manufacturers, they'll produce lots of as small as twenty units as well as in the thousands. Along with an army of eager interns, the plant also provides design consulting services, and Howard often finds herself serving as a de facto business counselor. "Sometimes I feel like I'm giving a seminar everyday," Howard said with a laugh. "This is your retail price, and this is your wholesale price."

For small designers, PGF's prices are comparable to—and the timeframe infinitely friendlier than—sending garments halfway around the world. That's in addition to higher-quality craftsmanship, as well as the assurance that it's sewn with pride by workers who are treated well. Leanne Marshall's graceful, ballet-inspired collections and Paloma Soledad's sultry gowns are only two of the many lines that are turning to the Factory—proof that just maybe that "Made in the U.S.A." label will stand for something once again.

Deep in the antique stores and flea markets around the Eastern Seaboard, Alice Saunders scouts materials to create Forestbound, her line of hand-made totes, purses and carry-alls. She makes each bag out of salvaged items that imbue them with a sense of history, interpreted by Saunders' own distinctive aesthetic.

"I'm about to finish up my spring special collection, which is based around a blacksmith's leather apron from the 1930s," says Boston-based Saunders. "All of the bags will incorporate straps or buckles constructed out of this particular apron, and the styles are inspired by what I envision a blacksmith from that era would have used." In addition to her personal spring collection, Saunders is also currently working on a small collection of four bags for Terrain, Anthropologie's home and garden shop.

The bags are ruggedly woodsy, her style influenced by an outdoorsy New England childhood as well as a sense of nostalgia. "I think a lot about canvas and leather bags that would have been used eighty years ago, and how I can recreate that in a way that's practical for everyday use," she explains.

Anthropologie's interest in her bags, as well as an upcoming collaboration with Brooklyn's Digby & Iona, would probably make most people consider expanding operations. But Saunders is determined to keep her business small. "Creating a bag based around that day's finds is the whole reason I'm so passionate about what I do. I'm definitely going to try my best to always find my own materials and be responsible for all of the construction."

In addition to larger collections for Anthropologie and other retailers, Saunders also sells her bags online. Prices vary depending on size and material, but start around $26 for a utility pouch to $300 for a leather carryall.

Like a younger Martha Stewart based in Portland, OR, Matt Pierce's wide range of skills—from sewing to woodworking and furniture-making—keeps him busy tinkering in the house (that he renovated) and his garden workshop. "I used to worry that because I was so interested in so many different things, that I could never become an expert in any one thing," he said. "Then I learned to embrace it. It's just my style to do a lot of different things."

But Pierce hasn't always been a chronic tinkerer; he also works as a graphic, interior and web designer (with clients like Adult Swim on his roster). It's perhaps this background that gives his all his work—from bags to doors and aprons—a distinctly utilitarian feel that doesn't detract from its handsomeness. "I like looking at Army-Navy stores, and using materials in ways that they weren't intended to be used," he said, sitting at the table that he made from metal, red Kevlar and wood given to him by his grandfather in Kansas (Pierce's native state).

Pierce's beautifully photographed site Wood & Faulk does perfect justice to his sturdily made and affordable products, which he produces in small batches and rotate frequently. "I think my next project might be a DIY lamp kit," he said. "I'd provide the die-cut pieces and tubing." Some of his other items for sale include a handsome heavy cotton carpenter's bag and pocket notebooks for when you have some inspirations of your own.

Wood & Faulk products sell online. To learn about ongoing projects, check out the blog.

Sourcing glass from as far off as Sweden or as locally as Washington state, glass artist Lynn Read works with glass from a variety of different sources (sometimes even old beer bottles) to produce a similarly wide array of pieces in his Portland, OR studio. His style ranges from intricate detailing reminiscent of a medieval tapestry to smooth and simple housewares in shades of deep cobalt blue and shimmering gold.

"I use different glasses for a variety of results," Read explains, "like color, clarity, viscosity, cost, quality and its ability to be tweaked."

Read got his start at Baltimore's Maryland Institute College of Art, starting by studying sculpture and painting but soon taking up an outside apprenticeship to work with glass. Rather than blowing glass into a mold—perhaps the influence of his sculpture background—he shapes each red-hot piece (at about 2150°F) with soft touches and gentle air pressure.

Read produces two separate lines in the Vitreluxe studio. The clean, simple, Bauhaus-inspired line of housewares starts at about $14 a piece and can be found in retail stores all over the country. His signature line starts at about $1000 per piece and can be found in museums and galleries, such as the Seattle Art Museum and the Williams College of Art in Massachusetts. For more information, check out his website.

The first product from Nice Reusables, a new company devoted to the idea that sustainability should be simple, the Alex Bottle is an easy-to-clean water bottle. Alex stands for "Always Live Extraordinarily"—a statement that may seem extreme out of context, but makes perfect sense when you learn that enterprising Oakley former team manager Chris Hotell and his wife, champion pro snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler, founded the company.

In this case, the extraordinary feat comes in the form of a new way to get gunk out of your drinking bottle. Most of us clean narrow-necked BPA-free bottles with a combination of despair and ingenuity, involving multi-step processes that include everything from simply scrubbing mold off caps to shaking a combo of lentils and dish soap or buying specialized cleaning solutions. No matter how hard you try, a well-used water bottle—filled regularly with coffee and smoothies and tossed in gym bags or the backseat of cars—can develop a funky aroma and thriving bacterial growth.

Alex's solution makes cleaning the bottle a breeze. The cap and lower half of the bottle detach and are dishwasher-friendly. Simply unscrew the bottle apart and stack it next to plates and silverware. The modular design also makes it easier to swap out tops and halves for when you want a smaller or larger bottle with mix-and-match colors. When it's empty, the bottle can pack inside itself for saving space in your bag or purse. All that cleverness earned Alex recognition as one of the finalistsin the 2011 Housewares Design Awards for Tabletop & Beverageware.

Next year should see further developments in the Alex design, with a sports top and a sippy cup attachment for kids. The Alex retails for $26 and sells online from the Alex Bottle shop.

A modern day tool kit, Nau's Fluent Stash organizes all of your cords, chargers, notebooks and other essentials into an elegant origami-style wallet. Made from 100% recycled wool, the Stash reflects Nau's commitment to creating environmentally-friendly, performance-driven products. Folding pockets snap shut to keep items from moving around while in transit, and the top flap closes with a 100%-recycled aluminum buckle through a fabric loop—perfect for turning the Stash into a toiletries case hung by the sink.

Other standouts from the collection include the Traveler, a 100%-organic cotton duffel, and the Doc, a zip-wallet made from 100%-recycled polyester packed with pockets for passports, credit cards and cash.

The Stash sells for $80 online from Nau.

Check out our video on Nau to learn more about the brand.