This blog is now Xtranormal.

Broccoli Man tells Coffee Girl about the Book Bag, a new superzeroz side-kick to the Library Man. But someone’s going green about the Book Bag……

[Created on Xtranormal]

 

Brainstorms & Ideation

Unadulterated. Don’t censor. Have fun. More, more, more! Yes, it’s BRAINSTORMING (not what you might be thinking)…

 

OK! After so much musing, observing and trying to know everything there is to know about bags, libraries and reader behaviour, it’s time to brainstorm ideas for the design concept of the bag. I actually mapped out the scope of the design (or the “design brief”) and linked the ideas together in a really cool, zooming format using Prezi, but to much painful realisation, there isn’t a way to embed it on my post! 😦 But for those interested, you can also click on this link to view it (takes a while to load, and click on the “forward” arrow head to advance the animation). [31 Jan 2011 update: I found a way to host it on wordpress.com blogs! See the cool, zooming Prezi below!]

 

I’d always been inspired (in a geeky way) by Royksopp’s award-winning video “Remind Me”, in how they had made potentially boring info-graphics into a seriously cool MTV.

So to give you a cool way (I hope it’s cool) to view the design brief of the Book Bag, I created the Royksopp-inspired info-graphic above to tie together all the observational findings and the design criteria. I also didn’t want to forget about the various questions I asked through the past blog-posts, which would be helpful to guide the design concept, so here is it:

So how can I design a library bag which helps the reader and enhance his experience with the library? How can the bag find a natural place within the reader’s environment at the same time, so that it won’t be lost/forgotten?

Can the bag design incorporate some “reading” element or get people to read more?

What has play gotta do with the bag design?

[…] some of the designs are interactive and needing a human user to complete the picture, though by itself alone would also pique curiosity by ‘yearning’ to be completed.

So how can I design a bag for library users to borrow books with, but at the same time can be fun / entertaining to use / durable (since one of the criteria is for users to return the bag, and thus be subject to multiple uses) and lastly helps our public libraries spread their ‘brand‘?

 

Ideas, ideas ideas!

So after some rough sketching and doodling and incubating, I came up with three ideas for the library bag – here’s the marketing pitch for them (rough sketches included)!

1.  The Green Bag

A tote bag made of high-strength recycled/reused paper fabric. Green is the theme here – everything from the material to its purpose and cause is related to recycling and reuse! Tapping on the heightened awareness for ecological sustainability and the growing market for green products, this Green Bag calls all to action to the three “R”s – recycle, reuse and RETURN [the bag]!

2.  The High Street Bag

A fashionable shopping bag with a cool slick design, and an accompanying reward scheme for every return of the bag. This bag is coolness defined. Expect people giving you double-takes when you carry this bag on the streets. This bag brings book-carrying to a new statusphere of haute coutre. On top of that, this bag pays you for carrying it! With every return of the bag, you accumulate reward points to exchange for free gifts! Now, that’s rewarding!

3.  The Book Bag

A defining experience of a book, that also bags other books. This [book/bag] leads a double life shared only by its other superheroes – a normal book by day, a crime-busting bag by night! By tapping on our everyday visual and tactile memories of  book-like books and the way we hold, use and interact with them, this [book/bag] disguises itself by day and lives our everyday lives with us. But beneath its gentle mien is a character of super-human proportions. With a flip, it transforms into a bag to save us from heavy burdens! Fortified with its tear-proof, weather-proof Tyvek ‘armour’, this [book/bag] pledges to serve us ordinary citizens by easing us of the ‘crime’ of carrying heavy books in hand.

 

I think I’m having TOO MUCH FUN!!! Hahaha… okay okay, cheesy marketing puns aside, what do you think of the three? I’m inclined toward the Book Bag at this point…. and not just because its a “superhero”! 😀