Bags across time and culture + sketches/final outcome

 
 
 
JAPANESE BAGSCarry History SriThreads Komebukuro bag

Carry History SriThreads Komebukuro 1

Komebukuro or “Rice Bag”, is usually made from small pieces of cloth – either hemp or cotton – that have been stitched together in a playful or spirited manner.

Carry History SriThreads Komebukuro 2



were for made for everyday common folk and  used to carry offerings of rice to Japanese temples or shrines.Usually features drawstring closures
  • borofabrics, Japan's mended and patched textiles are referred to as boro, or ragged.
    
    Boro textiles are usually sewn from nineteenth and early twentieth century rags and patches of indigo dyed cotton.Large variety of fabrics used: hemp, ramie and other natural fibres in the form of work clothing, farm bags, rustic netting, wrapping cloths and futon covers.

I began researching into bag designs for this project based off the kind of bag I needed at the moment.Recently, I’ve been going for 40 minute runs ,and One of the problems I encounter when I’m going on long runs, is that I find myself pretty dehydrated mid run.I would leave my water bottle at the starting point and I would only be able to drink when I returned to this point.I found this to be quite inconvenient as 1) I would have to preplan the route I’m taking ( normally I run freely), 2)I would hold my essentials(cards,house keys,phone,headphone), in my hand,and my headphone cord keeps moving around.Sometimes I opt out of listening to music entirely as the headphones keep falling out when swing my arms.So,I decided to come up with a bag pack designed for me to bring my water bottle as well as my essentials along with me without hindering my run.I wanted something that would be small ,flat,streamlined with thick straps to spread out the weight of the bag at the same time staying secure to my body.With this,I began researching into sports brands like puma and nike for some inspiration.Nike’s bag packs tend to have sleek minimal and functional designs- I picked out a few bags that I liked  as shown.

However,I thought that if I brought a 1.5L water bottle it would either move around within the bag too much or the bag would not be long enough in length to accommodate for the water bottle.During my research I came across this bag which resembled what I described and found out that they’re called hydration packs. A hydration pack is a type of hydration system built as a backpack containing a reservoir or “bladder” commonly made of rubber or flexible plastic. The reservoir contains a capped mouth for filling with liquid and a hose that allows the wearer to drink hands-free.

I then proceeded to look more into various hydration pack design and functionality.

Based off of the designs i found, I came up with a few sketches of the bag  I wanted to design.I settled for the design on the right page,and made a mini paper mockup of the bag pack. However I made adjustments to the design as I went along with the project. After making the mockup i realised i had trouble visualising the front of the bag and creating that torpedo shape originally planned for the bag.So i decided to fold paper over the paper mockup that i had and mould the paper into the shape as essentially the paper is supposed to mimic cloth, that does not have much structure.

After some experimentation, I ended up with the product below.Overall,I feel some improvements to be made would be to maybe make the bag more narrow and the main body of the bag bigger as I feel that the straps might be  too large in proportion to the bag itself.Also the paper i used for the body of the bag was thinner than that of the straps,so It would be easier to mould.,I could consider using paper slightly thicker,to prevent the paper from getting overworked resulting in a more polished outcome.

 

Mobile phone dock and speaker

For this project we were tasked to create a mobile phone dock/speaker.The speaker had to have these three functions:1) phone fits into the dock, 2) phone is charged with a connector, 3) speakers. Since there was so much freedom in how we could design the speaker itself,I decided to base my designs off animals and sketch out some of my ideas. Initially I began to sketch out some of my ideas without thinking too much about the 3D form o the 3 functions my speaker had to have.Also,I wanted the end speaker to have more than one function,to play music and to act as a night light.These were some of my sketches:

Most of my sketches ended up being inspired by a rabbit and I also noticed they were pretty spherical in structure.I already worked with spheres last semester so I decided to work with more rectangular ones instead.I thought of combining the idea of propping up the phone with the two rabbits (topmost pic) with a boombox speaker inspired design. I proceeded to sketch out more designs for the boombox base and picked out  the one I liked the best.The base would contain the iPhone dock and speaker and the two rabbits would light up according to the music.I  had some difficulty visualising my design in 3D in terms of scale and from the side view of the product and I felt that drawing on the foam with the iPhone measurements  helped a lot.From here I decided to improvise my design along the way.

The base was relatively easy to make.I cut the foam into a rectangular block, based off the measurements of the iPhone.Then I Cut a well in the middle of the base to act as the iPhone dock.The iPhone would be plugged into here and it would rest on the ears of the two bunnies.To make the bunnies,i started off with a rectangular block, and marked out where i want the ears to be and how tall i wanted the body to be.From there I cut off the excess with a foam cutter and sanded the rest to the desired shape.

Final model