Nani Marquina

The Spanish rug designer has been visiting India regularly since the early 1990s, when she moved her production there in an effort to create rugs that felt less like mass-produced objects and more like handcrafted works of art.

Of course, as any responsible and informed person knows, there's a great threat of exploitation when it comes to a first-world company working with communities that both specialize in handicraft and suffer from economic hardship. So Marqina teamed up with Care & Fair, a German nonprofit that seeks to end child labor practices and secure the rights of people that work in the rug trade in India, Pakistan, and Nepal. Together they launched a design competition for students, and the winning design, Kala, went into production.

The rug quickly became popular, and with a portion of the proceeds, Marquina funneled $30,000 to reopen the Amita Vidyalaya school in Bhadohi, an area known as India's "Carpet City".

Kala, which means both 'art' and 'morning' is a bold, geometric work that references the quick designs that are commonly drawn just outside villager's front doorways each morning.

We tip our hat to Nani.