Currently making it’s home at the Goods Dept in Plaza Indonesia, the bag customization campaign features a brand new collection of patches, including 9 limited edition artist series with design contributions from Darbotz, Tutu, and Sari (from Whiteboard Journal favorites – White Shoes and the Couples Company).JanSport has always exuded a sense of adventure in their campaigns. Having “Discover Freedom” as their current slogan and the brand’s humble beginning with Jan Lewis, Murray Pletz, and Skip Yowell designing and selling the bags, the now 40+ year old company maintains its image and philosophy that life should be about exploration, whether climbing mount Everest or looking inward and discovering what makes you unique.Design It Yourself, or DIY for short, brings an individualized twist to the Discovering Freedom campaign. No longer limited to simply picking out a bag, customers can select from a very wide array of patches to sow on to the bag and create an almost infinite amount of combinations. Focusing on expressing individuality, it gives the persons means to create their own unique JanSport bag.There is a selection of alphabet and number patches, but the fun definitely lies with the graphic patches that are available. Lightning inspired by Ziggy Stardust, a hat patch inspired by A Clockwork Orange, a Madballs inspired eyeball and much more, there are an assortment of fun designs you can combine to great effect.
Now the special artist edition is perhaps a personal favorite with Darbotz, Tutu and Sari (WSATCC) designing 3 patches each. Darbotz black and white Cumi monster is in full effect with one of the patches having the slogan “Quit your job and paint” scribed on it.
A senior street artist, Tutu contributes his colorful design and his trademark Squirrel character to JanSport, having the most “cartoonish” (lack of a better term) patches out of the three. Sari is very well known for her illustrations that are inspired by vintage items, and for JanSport she created 3 portraits of gentlemen and a lady with gold trimmings that make them stand out. The designs these artists provide are quite enjoyable.
When finished choosing the patches you want sowed on your bag, you get to choose where you would like those patches to be placed. Some are upfront with their decorations, having the bag almost covered by patches, some choose a more discreet route, putting the patches on the sides of the bag or other, less conspicuous places.When one finally make up their mind and are ready to bring their idea into fruition the bag gets taken to JanSport’s in house tailor at the Goods Dept and within a couple of minutes the customized product is ready to be used. The mechanics is quite simple, but that isn’t quite the main draw. The novelty lies at your ability to customize the bag into your own individual liking, and through its simplicity DIY fulfills its purpose quite well.
JanSport’s Design It Yourself campaign is currently making concept store-The Goods Dept its home for a limited time (February) and the artist series are quite limited in supply so if you’re curious about what this DIY campaign is all about, it’s best you head to Plaza Indonesia and experience it yourself. Meanwhile, click the “ENTER” button above to take a closer look.