Tote Bag Prototype to Final Product

Project II: Prototype to Final Product

For this project we were tasked with making a final product from a prototype we’d made in a previous studio class. I decided to go back to a project from studio 1 where we were tasked with improving the design of a product we encounter throughout our day. My group decided to improve the design of the tote bag to better fulfill the needs of the modern users. My group’s new design included a loop for a jacket, a laptop/tablet pocket, and a water bottle loop. Our main focus on the prototype in studio 1 was creating a functional jacket loop. We wanted to make sure to include our new improvements while still keeping the convenience and accessibility of the original tote bag design.

Original Design and Prototype

Since the goal for our prototype in studio 1 was to test the functionality of the design we primarily focused on making the jacket loop because that was the main focus of our redesign. The other elements of our design already existed on different tote bag designs we found but never together and most of the bags we found no longer looked like tote bags once those elements were added.

When creating our prototype we decided to add our changes to an existing bag rather than creating the whole bag ourselves. We used spare fabric and 3D printed clasps that we had designed on CAD.

New Prototype

For our new prototype we decided to make the entire bag from scratch and incorporate the elements that we’d left out in the original prototype. After reflecting on the past model we decided to make some minor changes as well. The most noticeable one being the type of clasp we went with. In the original prototype we used classic g-hooks however they were rather difficult to use quickly and didn't look the most trustworthy for holding up your jacket. Because of this we decided to swap them out with side release clips. Along with this we changed the materials we used, in the original we used scrap fabric but for this new iteration we made the bag out of canvas, and we used elastic and velcro for the computer strap. These changes make the design more user friendly and help a wider audience.

Manufacturing

The original prototype was constructed to test the jacket loop and made from scrap fabric. But for this new prototype we carefully measured and ironed out the fabric throughout the process to ensure everything was sewn correctly.

Chloe Nebel

Tote Bag redesign

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