The life of a Bag Designer

One task that I have performed religiously every month since about 2015, is calling five to six past customers to ask them what they like, and what they would change about their bag if they could. The feedback from these calls, is what ultimately drives innovation at NXT Journey.

It gets a little weird sometimes when I talk to people about bags. Now I know I am not designing rocket ships to take humans to Mars, or solving world poverty (not yet anyway), but I must admit, I get a excited about bags. I make no apologies that my focus every day of the week is designing the best work and travel bags possible.

Don’t they say, ‘find something you love and you will never work a day in your life’? Well, I got lucky.

What does it take?

I have been sketching all my life. Trying to put my ideas onto paper. This is difficult for someone like me, as my mind is always racing. Ooh what about this? Ooh what about that? This would look cool! What if I tried doing…?

Cutting the Truckie Bag in half
Video we filmed of Simon cutting our Truckie Bag in half to show the bags construction.

But you must be disciplined and find your focus. This is one of the reasons we have not added a wide range of bags to our line-up. I believe it is better to constantly refine, rather than constantly recreate. New bags will come organically from daily focus on getting our current range of bags better. We are proud of the detail that makes up our bags. The general public sees material in the shape of a bag. We see layers, bartack stitching, foam insulation, webbing…

Bringing it all together

There are a lot of spinning plates in the air when it comes to bringing a new bag design to life. Having done the process for nearly a decade helps, but you must commit to the process.

I relate it to a skill like abseiling. No matter how good you get at it, you never want to get complacent. Complacency can lead to a big fall!

It is so important to constantly keep your concentration on the process. Designing a new bag is definitely not one of those activities where you can just do the minimum. You need to keep a focus on the goal and be relentless in your pursuit of excellence.

Digital concept of new Safety Bag.

Way of the Sword

In 2021, we received a Facebook message from Christina.

To be honest, my mind was saying “Sim, you don’t have time to take on new projects. Remember all the tasks on your ever growing To-do-List?” But never say no Sim couldn’t say, well, no.

Christina came to Cootamundra one Saturday and we sat down to get a better understanding of what she wanted in a bag. She brought some of her swords and other equipment with her. This enabled us to look at pocket layout, over size, number of compartments and so on.

The next step was to start sketching some basic designs to arrive at an initial concept.

These sketches then enabled us to start putting a design together digitally. I use Adobe Illustrator, as I have a good working knowledge of it, and it is low cost compared to other software.

The digital design evolves over time, to ultimately include detailed information on bag measurements, materials, size and layout of pockets and compartments.

Initial designs of the Sword Bag
Christina inspecting the first prototype of her bag

Once we get the design right, we move to prototype stage. It is crucial you try and put as much work as possible into the design, it can mean the difference between 1 month of prototyping, or 12.

With Christina’s bag we got it pretty much right on the first prototype. General layout, size and materials were close to perfect.

Funny enough, if we did something wrong, it was over designing it. The bag with all the insulation made it a little too heavy. We rectified this by removing some excess material.

The next stage in the process is testing. Christina is now testing the bag through general usage. She will also give it to a number of other people to do the same.

I like to refer to this stage as ‘Treating the bag like you hate it’. There is no point trying to keep it clean and safe. You want things to go wrong with it now, so really put it through its paces.

This process can take any length of time, but normally we like to keep things moving, so 6 months works well. We can then move to a second prototype to implement any changes that are required.

Depending on the bag and how well the process goes, we may need to repeat the above several times.

We had one more little surprise for her- adding her Way of the Sword logo.

I would like to be able to tell you that designing and bringing a product to life is a glamorous process. Truthfully it can be an immensely stressful time. But in saying this, the reward of arriving at a high quality, functional bag at the end, is more than worth it.

When you get your first 5 Star review from a customer, well, this is just icing on the cake.

Picture of Simon Sutherland

Simon Sutherland

Simon is Managing Director at NXT Journey.