Everybody loves the familiar, right? It's comfortable, reassuring, gentle . . and everywhere. If everybody loves it, that means it's hard to get away from. It's almost impossible for a thing--a consumer good, anyway--to be familiar and individual at the same time. You've seen this problem in shoes, at least if you've tried to buy men's shoes for shorts-or-sports wear in the past couple years. Doreen Hing saw the same problem during her years as a shoe designer, and grew weary of it. When she began to observe it again, this time in yoga mats, she decided to put a stop to it. She was "visually bored" with the solid-colored mats all around, so she came up with mats that are anything but boring. Mats need carriers, other yoga accessories need roomy tote bags, and before she knew it she had a whole company's worth of designs. She and Jennifer McKinley formed Plank, which brings a welcome measure of wit and design flexibility both to the surprisingly stiff world of yoga and to life outside the classroom, using fun graphics and strong color combinations.