Hasta La Ideas

Survivalists are an interesting subculture. Out of curiousity I read a few books from the genre on how to survive apocalyptic disasters, and while I found their ideologies too extreme to personally support, there are plenty of things designers can learn from them. For example, if I had to design a hyper-functional bag, they are the first group I would consult and study.

Here’s why: They are completely obsessed with both gear and the idea of self-sufficiency. They prize durability and functionality in a product because their fervency makes them believe their lives will depend on it. They build backups and redundancy into their carry systems to compensate for product failure or unforeseen problems.

More importantly, unlike a soldier who is assigned a standardized piece of kit, survivalists scour the product landscape for the best, and can freely hack the gear to suit their needs. Soldiers must rely on the design talents harnessed at Natick (click here for our entry on a recent first-aid kit re-design), but the survivalist and his or her discretionary income have companies actively courting them.

One such company is “hard use gear” manufacturer Maxpedition, whom we last looked in on in 2010. Through customer feedback, they realized that their FR-1 pouch, which they had designed as a medical kit, was being subverted by users into a “survival pouch.” The company must consider it a godsend of free advertising, because here you have survivalists making their own videos to explain to other survivalists what they like about the bag and how they pack it. Here’s an example:

(more…)

Imagine you’re giving a five-minute presentation on industrial design to a crowd of people who have never heard of it. You’re asked to show two different versions of the same product, one exemplifying good design, the other exemplifying lousy design, to help the crowd “get it.” What objects would you choose? If it were me I’d mention the story of the Jerrycan versus the Allied fuel containers of World War II.

Those two items were designed in the 1930s. What’s going on in the design of military gear today? In America we’ve got the Natick Soldier Systems Center, an R&D center meets design-and-engineering firm focused on military needs. “If a Soldier wears it, eats it, sleeps under it or has it airdropped to them, it is researched and developed on [our] 78-acre campus,” explains a Natick press release.

One of Natick’s departments is the Load Carriage Prototype Lab, where equipment designers like Rich Landry (pictured up top) create bags and wearable gear holders. A former Pathfinder for the 82nd Airborne Division, Landry recently re-designed the Army’s IFAK, or Individual First Aid Kit, bag. The previous iteration of the IFAK was rushed out in 2003 due to sudden military demand and was thus a mere retrofit design of an ammunition pouch.

(more…)

Always curious to give a new backpack a try in my quest to find the perfect bag, I didn’t think twice about agreeing to review Booq‘s “Mamba Shift” when they reached out to us several months ago. Only afterward did it occur to me that there are actually two kinds of perfect bag: the go-to, everyday pack that becomes an extension of one’s body, and those that fill—or rather, can be filled to serve—a specific need, patiently awaiting their intermittent calling, at which point they will humbly fulfill their duty (i.e. a frame pack). Read on to find out if the Mamba Shift proved itself worthy of that elusive upper echelon of faithful utility.

My first impression of the Mamba Shift was that it looked pretty slick—judging a Booq by it’s cover, perhaps—with its unconventional vertical detailing on the front, which is bisected by a seam that runs the length of the panel. A pop color peeks out from the top half of the split, concealing the functional pleat of the expandable front pocket. The pocket is big but the zipper is a little awkward, as it runs along one of the two slightly curved seams along either side of the centerline; it’s also hard to see what’s in there. (Similarly, diagonal stitching conceals a slash pocket on either side, their openings limned by red piping.) The general aesthetic is minimal but still a little overdesigned for my taste.

The front pocket is also lined with the pop color

Personal preferences aside, the materials and construction exude ‘premium product’: the 1680 denier nylon feels largely impervious to the elements and the Mamba Shift feels entirely sturdy, albeit a bit heavy at three pounds. The Mamba Shift boasts substantial padding throughout, and the Nylex-lined laptop pocket, in particular, accounts for some of the weight: it’s incorporated between the main compartment and the back of the bag, like a giant laptop sleeve (indeed, a separate sleeve would be overkill). A foam pad between the laptop pocket and the breathable Airmesh padding adds a bit of structure to the backpack. No complaints here: it’s easily accessible and feels safe, even cozy.

The turtle shell-like exterior of the bag belies its highly partitioned interior: the main compartment is divided into no less than ten pockets, plus a removable nylon pouch. Lest it seem like that Booq design team has lined the inside of the Mamba Shift with as many pockets as they possibly could, each one is a slightly different size, material or dimension. While it’s at the consumer’s discretion as to what, if anything, goes in each one, the sheer number of permutations—nylon or mesh lining, velcro or elastic enclosure—seems a tad superfluous.

The slash pockets are split into four, with the dedicated pen and business card slots at left; the opposite face of the compartment (bottom of the picture) has the other five pockets

The abundance of pockets certainly presents a variety comfortable homes for cords, tablets and other periperhals, but bulkier objects pose a problem: a DSLR fit best at the bottom of the main compartment, which can be difficult to reach when you’ve loaded up the upper pockets (I was also baffled by the decision to put dedicated business card and pen slots near the bottom). Nevertheless, the zipper runs along a full three-quarters of the Mamba Shift, enabling easy access when completely open—flaps of nylon prevent stuff from spilling out the sides—but the usable volume is limited by the stiff exterior panels, which offer extra protection at the expense of capacity.

(more…)

“How come travel wallets have always looked like man-bags that don’t even fit in your pocket?” asks Australia-based Bellroy, the company dedicated to designing better ways to carry things. “These over-sized ‘purses’ force you to keep your passport and tickets in a bag, far from the most secure place when traveling.”

Their solution is the purpose-designed Travel Wallet, sized to hold everything flat you’d need to get through the hell of JFK or the bliss of Incheon.

Your passport gets the separate compartment it deserves, there’s space to hold four credit cards, and the extra-long lengthwise slot means you can stick your boarding pass in there without creasing the barcode, not to mention hold currency from those countries with the weird doormat-sized bills. There’s even an included micro-pen that tucks into the spine, so you can fill out that form where you lie about the fact that you’re smuggling infected livestock and genetically-enhanced seedlings while carrying more than US $10,000 in cash.

The Travel Wallet’s done up in vegetable-tanned leather, in both a dark “midnight” color and a lighter cocoa, the latter of which will more quickly gather that Indiana-Jones-like patina.

(more…)

For the review of Crumpler’s Dry Red No. 5 laptop backpack, I’ll be using it in two capacities: First as an airplane personal carry-on bag, where its job is to hold things I’ll need during a seven-hour flight. Secondly I’ll be using it on the ground as a sort of journalist’s bag to cover a press event.

Packing for Travel

I keep my carry-on bag as light as possible, for reasons mentioned in the travel methodology post. I don’t carry adapters, chargers and cables in there, as I’m rarely in an airplane seat with an outlet. Just the bare in-flight essentials.

For me that’s (clockwise from center) a set of noise-canceling headphones, an inflatable travel pillow, a print book, an iPad, my laptop, eyeglasses, a writing pad, a business card holder and a pen.

(more…)