Nood Lab

Having an online tool for designer’s to use has always been a top priority at Nood. We have always tried to use this tool that we refer to as “Nood Lab” to truly let the designer’s stop shopping and start designing. Using Nood Lab, designers choose styles and recolor them. Creating these digital room scenes on their screen is more eco-friendly, expedient, and economically way to order samples for a project. They can down load specs with complete recycled content breakdown numbers. Please contact Lacy Price for step by step instructions on how to use Nood Lab. (lacyprice@noodfashion.com)

Nood Fashion Website’s New Look

If you haven’t noticed already, the Nood Fashion website has some new digs. Our plan for the website will be executed in two phases.
• Phase I will include a new home page with links to our new Facebook page and a link to the article in Metropolis Magazine that featured Nood’s Trunk Show. You also can enjoy a colorful option or a more classic white background with the feature at the bottom of the home page that says Lights: ON / OFF. Phase I has already went live, and you can check it out now.
• Phase II will include more live feed of what’s going on at Nood. You will see a live status update from our Twitter and Facebook accounts on the Home page along with Featured Installations and Press Releases. All of the technical and backing information will be updated with the new modular technical additions. Our goal is to update the home page more often with color trends, events, and featured installations. We hope to have Phase II live at the beginning of December.

Nood's New Web Intiative

If you have checked the noodfashion.com site lately, you have been taunted with the idea that Nood is going social. There is some truth to that! We have developed a presence on Facebook corporately, and I have personally started a Twitter account. We are also creating a public blog that will represent a more long-winded arena for Nood to express ideas, initiatives and progress. If you are reading this, then you are aware that we have initiated a sales partner blog where you guys have the inside scoop on the land of Nood. This post is merely a warning at this point! But, we are serious about taking advantage of how connected and dialed in our target audience is. This is only the beginning and we are going to need your help! You have to help us spread the word! You have to actually follow us on Facebook and contribute from your side. You have to encourage your clients to follow Nood. Twitter is my personal initiative, and I hope that it helps represent Nood as a company that actually cares because we do. You don’t create a company that is completely invested in the idea of change if you don’t believe that change is a reality. If we do not change, we will always be “here”. I don’t know about you, but “here” is not where I want to stay for too much longer. Most of you are aware that I have made some significant changes in the last six months. I have back filled with talented people in Dalton and decided to create a really flat sales organization where I am on the road essentially every week. I believe that it is important that you and your clients hear the story from the founder. I think it is critical for our target audience to feel my presence as we all respectively pioneer the Nood brand into a crowded market. The real idea behind this web presence is to personalize Nood and create more of a tangible experience by using these social and web based mediums to multiply our collective efforts. What really separates Nood is that we are truly different, and we need to get our clients to experience that in a myriad of ways and then also to help us spread the word via this social vehicle.

Our goal is not to use these sites the way our competitors are as simple marketing extensions, but to truly use them to help represent a unique and compelling movement of designers who acknowledge that things can be done better and that Nood is part of the solution. We want people to feel our presence in a lot of markets engaging with a lot of clients in a lot of projects. This will drive credibility which any new company needs. We want them to see that we are not simply about selling carpet, but that we are promoting and participating in related ideas like alternative urban transportation, organic farming, urban green spaces, health and personal wellness. These are not bogus. We are supporting teams of designers to train for triathlons in DC. We are invested in low-speed electric vehicles that can transform urban transportation. I take my daughters to dance in mine twice a week. The portion of our target audience that will actually follow us online are eager to find a higher meaning in the products that they choose other than the simple apparent value. They want to feel like their choices are part of a greater good. Nood is not artificially positioning itself there but eager to let people see us simply as the new and different green company that hopes to slowly transform the way carpet is made and specified.

Here are the links to Facebook and Twitter and I would challenge each of you to not only participate but to make any suggestions or observations that will help us with this initiative.

Become a fan of Nood Fashion by going to www.facebook.com and searching Nood Fashion.

Follow Bo on Twitter by going to www.twitter.com and searching @bobarber.

Tile Backing is now Nexterra

Nood is thrilled to announce the introduction of Nexterra as a new backing system for modular products. After much deliberation, we have decided to partner with Beaulieu of America and endorse their Nexterra backing technology for all of our commercial products. We will be keeping Envirocel Modular Laminate as a viable option for future introductions of modular products for residential applications. The short term reality is that effective immediately, all modular tile orders will have Nexterra applied and will only be available in 24”x24” tiles. Briks(24”x48”) will no longer be offered on existing commercial styles.

This decision was tough because Nood participated significantly in the research and development of the EnviroCel Modular system and believe that it is a dynamic new technology that is slightly ahead of it’s time for Nood. The logic for this move really centered on the sales and marketing challenge of being forced to introduce a radical new company like Nood and all the changes we are asking the design community to embrace and then throwing a last minute curve ball of a modular product that is not really a tile because it is pliable like broadloom and light as a feather. My belief is that it was asking too much of our sales partners and the design community. I essentially thought it was a liability given the pioneering reality of introducing Nood in the competitive climate that you are operating in everyday.

Now, when you have a designer all excited about a green company that makes carpet and allows them to stop shopping and start designing and she asks if we offer tile, you fire back a simple “YES!”. We offer a NON-PVC, traditional hard back system in 24”x24” tiles called Nexterra. It is commonly used in the industry and is also endorsed by companies like Bolyu and Cambridge with years of successful installations. It is 85% recycled content using plastic bottles(PET) and goes down with a common releasable adhesive from ParaChem (M5080).

It seems appropriate for Nood to choose the greenest backing available with a proven track record. Now, there are some housekeeping challenges. We will be reprinting the backings insert for the folders and will obviously replace them in all future folders and provide you with replacements for you to manage existing books at your discretion. We will be making changes to the website in the coming weeks and will be sending all of you some technical updates via this sales blog. Another positive is that this will increase the number of products offered in tile and that list will be posted in the coming days as well. One positive timing coincidence is that the website is going to be updated with tile functionality and all relevant products will be adjusted online.

This is probably the most significant news for the second half of 2009 and sets us up well to take off in the coming months with a comprehensive, well rounded offering. I do want to clarify that while our broadloom pricing is extremely competitive with any other line, our modular tile offering is not positioned to compete where the traditional PVC commodity tile market has evolved to. We are offering a premium, non-PVC backed product with 85% recycled content on patterns that a designer can have dyed in any color. My hope is that we have created a tile offering that is unique and allows our sales partners to consistently make good money providing a compelling new option in the middle to high end tile arena. With that being said, our commitment to client collaboration and getting traction in your respective markets means that we have your collective backs and will pick a fight when necessary to make a statement.

Do you offer tile? “Absolutely!”

30/60/90 Projections

I know that salespeople shutter when manufacturers ask for projects working. It always made me crazy and that is why I am not going to ask for anything that even smells like one. However, I am going to give you the opportunity to participate in Nood’s production planning. If you have projects that are going to be physically ordered within the next 30, 60 or 90 days, we are inviting you to provide the project specifics on a regular basis.

It seems appropriate to reinforce our commitment to GREEN going way beyond neat slogans and recycled content. We have created an on- demand manufacturing model that centers on not making samples or actual carpet until someone wants it. Manufacturing efficiencies do require us to periodically create greige goods(un-dyed and un-backed carpet) in bulk of several patterns at a time. Our goal is to only tuft carpet for existing or upcoming orders. This is where the 30/60/90 report from our sales partners becomes critical. It allows us to proactively create greige to fill upcoming orders in a proactive manner allowing us to significantly lower lead times. I want to clarify that we will not begin the process of dyeing carpet until we have the signed strike-off, credible purchase order and the relevant deposit.

I would urge you to be diligent in providing this information as it is going to allow us both the best opportunity to look good by meeting or exceeding expectations. We completely understand that orders will sneak up on all of us and hopefully start to drop out of the sky someday and we are committed to filling those orders as quickly as possible. The Nood model actually will become more efficient as volume goes up. That may seem counter-intuitive but more volume means more frequent tufting runs and that is similar to the old-school mentality of turning inventory. It is good when at any time, you are getting shorter and shorter periods between manufacturing cycles.


As Jerry McGuire said, “HELP ME HELP YOU!”

Lowering Our Face Weight

Nood promises to do the next right thing as soon as the next right thing comes along. We promise to CHANGE and EVOLVE and that is not an empty promise. We are committed to lowering our footprint and in this case, it means lowering the weight of many of our products. We are happy to announce that we have introduced new yarn technology in partnership with Ascend(previously Solutia) to overhaul our collection of Ultron 6.6 yarns. We will be moving to a 900 denier building block that will allow us to increase our typical 2-ply twisted and heatset yarn to a 1800 denier product. This will significantly lower the weight while increasing our GBW(green by weight) percentages. We will achieve this technically by lowering pile height and increasing stitch rate. The easy explanation is that the yarn is bigger and we can get better coverage at lower pile heights allowing us to significantly lower the amount of yarn(petroleum) needed.. This has altered the specifications and any new requests for specs will show the relevant changes. There will be two slight challenges as we transition. Any signed strike-offs for orders will need to be re-done in the appropriate fabric if there is not sufficient greige goods in inventory to fill the order. This may create some frustration but it is imperative that we stay true to our commitments. We will proactive address outstanding strike-offs if the probability of getting an order is high based on sales partner input on the 30/60/90 projections from the sales partners.

I can hear some of you thinking that pricing is going to go way down. There is some reality to the notion that lowering weight means less fiber for Nood to buy but there is an increased cost to processing the larger yarn so don’t expect any crazy price adjustments. The following is a list of the products that will be effected. Go change the world one designer at a time!

Why Nood is Called Nood

Nood is a Dutch word that literally translates into “NEED” in English but what is unique is the mispronunciation of Nood in English. Most people will go with “NUDE” and that double entendre is very intentional. Nude is very descriptive because it speaks to our commitment to dematerialization and stripping things down as well as the idea of transparency which is part of our core DNA. The name is meant to be unique and memorable but I hope it resonates with our target audience because it should reinforce the simple fact that Nood is not just another carpet company that is going green. Nood was created from the beginning to be a green company that happens to make carpet.



Fashion is a very important part of the name that often gets forgotten and overlooked. Fashion is defined as a response to the time. The idea that we do not make carpet or samples until someone actually wants it is what allows us to have this passion for fashion. We are not a company that manufactures stuff and then tries to sell it to someone. We are clearly interested in making exactly what people want today instead of trying to predict the future when it comes to color. This was born out of our commitment to dematerialization and less stuff but has emerged into the battle cry of “Stop shopping and start designing”. Why fill their library with colors that someone in Dalton chose a year ago when you can collaborate with the designer to get the exact colors they want today. We have heard over and over that shopping for carpet typically will render a product where the pattern is perfect and the color is close or the other way around but rarely are pattern and color both perfect. We have also been told that our flexibility in color allows designers to redefine the way they work. They would typically start with carpet and then design from the floor up but with Nood, they are able to work with all of the other finishes that may be static or unknown from the beginning and then tweak the color of the carpet at the end. The feedback suggests that this saves the designer a significant amount of time and frustration because all of the typical confusion around shopping and that potential reselects are avoided.



Nood was not created because the industry needed another carpet company doing more of the same. However, we believe that a there is a growing number of designers that will welcome a new type of green company that is shifting the focus from supply to demand and allowing them to participate in the process and eliminate waste in their process at the same time. Nood is asking our clients to change and that is not easy and there will be hurdles but the climate in our society and industry are in our favor and that coupled with a target audience that actually wants to actually create change, the future is bright!

Welcome to Our New Sales Blog

Nood is growing and evolving these days in a myriad of ways. We are adding sales partners at a feverish pace, diving into social media and attacking product development with a vengeance. There would be a lot to keep up with if we were an old-school carpet mill but things are multiplied because we are a new type of company committed to evolving and changing in response to where our clients want us to go. We are lucky that our target audience wants us to give them beautiful carpet and the ability to participate in the design process but is equally jacked about our unwavering commitment to re-thinking the what we make, how we make it and even how we specify it.

Our challenge at Nood is to educate and inform existing and new sales partners in an efficient and effective way while considering our footprint. We are introducing a simple blog where we will be posting a lot of information. We will post entries that simply use text to attaching videos, spreadsheets, forms, links to articles/facebook/twitter, etc. The goal is to take you through a three step process that will move you from being comfortable with Nood to being competent and then finally to a place of confidence. I call this the three C's. This blog will serve as a place where we go back in time and post a lot of existing but pertinent information for everyone and a place for us to keep you new information ranging from product development to changes in operational processes and procedures. It will also serve as a vehicle for us to give you insight into some of the philosophical subtleties that define Nood. Our hope is that you will reference this frequently from a educational standpoint and as a reference, and we will alert you to new post as they arrive.

Tune in soon as there will be frequent additions in the coming days....