The Outlier Rucksack is the result of a thirteen week soft goods design project completed in the summer of 2014.
Though it works well for air travel and road trips, the established paradigm for travel backpacks is not well-suited for daily use. Nor does it attempt to be. But why can’t a backpack do both equally well? Arguably, for a backpack to be a true companion for life’s adventures, it must.
I saw an opportunity to create a new brand that combines rugged versatility (including travel capability) with a fashionable aesthetic that sets the product apart from its competitors, and gives it strong visual recognition.
YNDR finds inspiration in environments where people are on the move, whether it be a busy New York street or a solitary mountain trail.
The YNDR brand mark draws a subtle reference to heritage outdoor backpack and apparel brands, but with its modern simplicity and clean lines, becomes an antithesis to the typically vintage and ornamental identities of its competitors.
While working to define the brand, I also began ideating on the backpack itself, attempting to define solutions to enable a travel backpack to also function equally well as a daypack.
The final design provides a dual-mode solution to fulfill the needs of the traveler and the every day user.
The prototyping process for this project was my first experience using a sewing machine, as well as with soft goods construction in general, and I ran into many challenges. I plan to continue developing this design to hopefully arrive at an innovative and polished product that lives up to my vision for what it could be.
