Ode

Industrial Design, Soft Goods Design, Interaction Design

Marking the end of my academic career, I compiled experiences from my own experience and my peers' and designed one “ideal” backpack that would streamline daily academic activities – offering easy access points and plenty of storage options without being overwhelmed by compartments

What is Ode?

Over the past 17 years in school I never found the "perfect backpack." There's a lot of really nice (and expensive) specialized bags, like camera bags and hiking packs, but typical school bags offered little thought to storage and a leg up, tech bags, had a lot of compartments but little space for larger items – there was no middle ground. So, for my Senior Capstone, I strove to compile these years of experience into one (near perfect) academic backpack, an Ode.

Main Pain Points

collected through various interviews

Features

I aimed to contain the features to the main compartment so that the user can access everything needed in class in one go

Image Board

a calm, neutral backpack with unique and clean flairs like in techwear

Ideation

a mix of sketching and paper prototyping

Fabrication Plans

laying out the order of operations

Making the Backpack

created a first prototype (in black) with scrap fabric, made magnetic compartments for quick and easy access, and sourced nylon and poplin for the fabrics

NICOLE YU

2024