Bag Design

Step 1: Choose your fabric.

Click here if you would like to take a closer look at any of the fabrics above.

Step 2: Choose if you want a Tulip Bag, A Big Town Bag or a Small Town Bag. Then refer to the relevant diagram (below) and fill out the details in an email to me.

Step 3: I will reply to your email as soon as I can confirming your bag order details.

Have fun!

This week the new bags are: a Cyan and Terracotta Tiles Big Town Bag, a Disa Magnifica Big Town Bag and a Chocolate and Peach Stylized Big Town Bag. …all are equally gorgeous!

Which one is your favourite?

I’m sitting here at my desk watching my fingers move across my keyboard…and I’m numb. I have had a crazy day running around, being disappointed, making a new plan, then that does not work out and so the day goes on. I feel as though I am constantly hitting a brick wall with my new bag design that I still hope to launch next week.

I have made five samples and with each one the pattern has been improved but the bag STILL does not look like the image I have in my head. Ive been looking and working with this bag for so long now that I cannot for the life of me work out what exactly is wrong, what needs to be changed or if I should just rip it apart and start all over again. Jeremy tells me that simplicity is the hardest thing to achieve. I am not quite convinced my bag will evolve into a simple but efficient design - as is the goal - but I am hoping.

According to the author of ‘The laws of Simplicity‘, John Maeda , the easiest way to simplify a system is to remove functionality. Now I ask - how can good bag design not have function at it’s core??? He explains that one must find a balance between complexity and simplicity. In the context of bag designing, the bag must have compartments that make storage easy and finding things even easier, must have a means to hold the bag, must be able to be closed…..and then on the other hand all you want is for it to hold things and be portable. I guess in theory, the bag should have as many pockets and compartments as the design allows rather than trying to force them.

He simplifies this complex theory down to a great phrase:

“The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. When in doubt, just remove.”

I feel I have followed through with this and if you could see the original pattern/sample bag, the simplification is evident. The bag started with four layers of fabric in one section and this has now been reduced to two. In so many ways I have achieved simplicity and what I would define as good design…but…there is still something that bothers me when I walk past this bag. Perhaps it’s shouting out that it is tired of being worked on and just wants to be launched …or perhaps it’s just me over-analyzing in our over-complicated lives and world again …perhaps I will just sleep on it.