About the Partners
James and Chelsea Minola met during a Wintersession course in Guatemala while studying at the Rhode Island School of Design and quickly learned that they had quite a bit of personal history in common: Both grew up in Southern California and had family living on an island in the Puget Sound. The pair also shared an ambition to make a positive impact with their design educations by dedicating their practice to social and environmental responsibility.
About Grain
Grain is a design practice dedicated to social and environmental responsibility. Their work unites current manufacturing technologies and age-old craft techniques. Goods are produced in small batch runs at their island studio or through special collaborations with expert artisans in the US and abroad.
As a full service design consultancy and studio, they offer expertise in research, strategy and design for companies interested in uniting sustainability and business through design. Their clients include companies such as Design Within Reach, Hem, Trina Turk and Anthropologie.
In 2008, they began to design and produce a line of in-house products for wholesale and retail markets that are created as sustainably as possible in the Pacific Northwest or in collaboration with artisan communities in Guatemala. Our first product, Ty, a recyclable shower curtain that does not off-gas, remains our best selling design to date and is available from retailers throughout North America, Europe and Australia.
Their designs have been sold in hundreds of shops across the US and abroad and have been published in a wide variety of magazines and blogs.