THE BEGINNING

I often try to train on a busy day in between. This requires me to take my training items to a business meeting, a restaurant or anywhere else.

That means I have to keep my sports shoes in a bag, along with my clothes, a laptop and office supplies, use a non-casual sports bag, or take two different bags or, as I usually do, put my shoes into one shopping bag and then put it in the backpack.
I then put my laptop in an extra case and put the charging cables together with my sports equipment into the main compartment.

When I looked for a better backpack for my lifestyle and did not find it, and realized Howe easy it has become to making a product in today's well-connected world, I decided that I wanted to design one myself.
When started to design the backpack with the product name "DAYFARER", I wanted a minimalist looking backpack with an elegant yet sporty design. The backpack should be perfect for both sports and office supplies, while being functional and easy to use, and all in the very best quality.

I started designing a first prototype the same day with a cardboard box and a grocery bag. Immediately afterwards I made my first drawings.

Man, I knew I had a long way to go. But at the same time, I could not wait to get started. Immediately I had an appropriate design in mind and in order to achieve the perfect features and the best possible quality, I read all the comments among all the popular backpacks I could find online to find out exactly what people liked and did not like; what material people thought it was durable and comfortable and which it did not.
Then I studied the current market closely, by far the most helpful were the articles on the website carryology.com for me, especially helpful, just at the beginning were the Articles Components and the youtube posts of their representatives, which I have looked at again and again.

Next, I learned how to draw a tech pack, download Adobe Photoshop, and learn how to create a tech pack on Photoshop through "youtube" videos. A tech pack is a set of instructions for the manufacturer to produce specific products.
(The factory I'm working with has later made a new one to make the backpack based on my tech pack.)

I studied and tested hundreds of different fabrics, materials and hardware and talked to experts for backpacks. It's amazing how easy it is to get samples for materials and hardware by simply contacting the companies. (Unlike the factories)

(First vs last prototype)

After a few months, I was finally ready to look for a factory to manufacture. That was a much bigger challenge than I could have imagined.
More on this in the next blog post.