Tuesday, August 28, 2012

SF Etsy & Rickshaw Bags Design Contest


About a month ago, Rebecca Saylor strolled into Rickshaw Bagworks to collect some heavyweight fabric scraps that they were donating to Fabmo - along with some bags they made for volunteers.
Little did she know...she would spark a partnership that could very well go down in SF Etsy history.

Meet Mark Dwight...Founder & CEO of Rickshaw Bagworks. He's also the Founder of SFMade.
He's a completely talented and creative individual who really knows what it's like to start something from a small seedling of an idea - into something really special.
Read all about Rickshaw Bags and tell me you're not already feeling inspired by these people.

He heard about us through the SF grapevine and he said to Rebecca - I want to team up with SF Etsy and wanted to see if we would like to work together on some fun projects....and Rebecca said "I'll connect you!" The excitement was in the air.
I could hear the smile in Rebecca's voice when she called to tell me about partnering with them.  Shortly after, she connected me with Mark and the three of us started to coordinate a series of partnerships with Rickshaw Bagworks for SF ETSY MEMBERS ONLY :-)!! Yay'

The First partnership starts now...

THE DESIGN CONTEST!
I personally am completely thrilled by this contest...and I just know you all will be, too. Bag makers, embroidery artists and painters/illustrators will LOVE this project.

Basic Concept:
Design the front flap of a Rickshaw Bagworks Medium Zero Messenger Bag.

Materials You Can Use (limitations on material usage):
  • For Illustrators/Screenprinters/Painters - use 10 oz. weight canvas & screen printing paint. Make sure you waterproof it also just in case it gets caught in the rain when it's made into a bag
  • Bag Designers - heavy-weight upholstery fabric or anything that is 10 oz. weight or more. You can do a quilting technique or use your sewing machine to patch on different pieces to the front flap...the world is your oyster. You can even add a pocket to the front also (sorry, no button though)
  • For Embroidery: see above. :) You can embroider on any heavy-weight fabric 10 oz. weight or more.
NO GLITTER - NO SEQUINS - NO FEATHERS - NO EXTRA PARTS
Nothing that could get stuck in a machine when being cut or assembled. 
Bag design should lay flat and be easy to fold up... nothing too thick, sticky or messy.
If you use any of the restricted materials, your submission will be disqualified.

The Pattern:
Download and view the pattern below
your submission will be is 20" by 15"
Keep your main design in the safe area shown below



PLEASE DO NOT CUT IT INTO A FLAP SHAPE
(that way, if you want to make this into a bag yourself later,
you can still do that and have them cut it for you)



Rebecca Saylor's flap design and the color swatches
Designing your one-of-a-kind flap...is really fun!


Mark of Rickshaw Bags hard at work with Rebecca's flap design

Here's a photo Astra Brinkmann took of me working on my bag design

How to submit your flap design:
Send a scan or a take a photo of your bag flap to me (Katy) by September 15th.
I will create a mock-bag with your design for voting.
Make sure you send in the best quality photo to get the most votes!
ONLY ONE DESIGN PER SF ETSY MEMBER

BAG EXAMPLES:
Here are the two bags designed from the flaps that Rebecca and I made. Notice that she used a quilting/sewn technique and I used a painting technique on my flap.

You can really individualize your design to suit your artistic style.

Flap design by Rebecca Saylor using heavy-weight upholstery
Detail shot of Rebecca's Bag - all photos taken by Rickshaw Bagworks


Detail shot of Katy's finished bag


Flap design by Katy Atchison - later assembled and built by Rickshaw Bagworks

This is what the mock design will look like for voting
Voting & How You Win:
Voting will begin on September 18th and will end September 24th on our Facebook Page. The winner will be announced at a September 25th event (see below). To win: you must have the highest COMBINED total of likes and comments for your bag design.

What you win:
You get your one-of-a-kind bag made - for free 
by Rickshaw Bagworks
Valued at over $89. You'll get to completely customize the color combination of your bag by choosing the final colors for the inside, outside and piping of the bag.
Why You want to be part of this:
EXPOSURE! Every design submitted will be posted on our Facebook Page with a link to your shop. We will have blog postings about the contest. And a whole event to announce the winner, too!
Not only that - you'll get the opportunity to really show Rickshaw Bagworks what you're all about...and YOU can build this bag later yourself if you want and wear it around to show off your brand and what you're work is all about.


WINNER ANNOUNCED DURING THE
SF ETSY EVENT @ RICKSHAW BAGS
SEPTEMBER 25th @6pm
904 22nd Street – San Francisco, CA
Right next to 22nd Street Cal Train Station

During our exclusive SF Etsy Event at Rickshaw Headquarters
FREE beverages will be provided by Speakeasy Beer! YUM!
All SF Etsy members can come to this free event! If you designed a flap - please, bring it to the event to show it off to Rickshaw and so we can create a pop-up gallery for all of us to talk about and enjoy during the event. We'll be hanging them all up and admiring your work.
Plus! Added bonus for attending: Rickshaw Bagworks wants to talk to YOU about teaming up with them to create limited edition bags. You do the fun part - put your spin on the front of the bag...
and then they assemble bags to your specs! Come hang with us and Rickshaw Bags (drink a free beer!)  and see why they want to work with you - help you expand your business into the art of making bags along side Rickshaw Bagworks via small batch one-of-a-kind bags & in-store consignment opportunities.  Imagine having access to an industrial sewing machine - a team of people to assemble your work - and a whole company wanting to help you ...create something... magical!

Plus, Mark will talk all about SFMade - what it is & how to join!

Questions?
Ask me or Rebecca if you are struggling with any part of this. We want to make this a fun project for each of you! 

HUGE THANK YOU to Rebecca Saylor. This has been her vision and we are so lucky to have her on our team!


If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact Katy or Steph about joining SFEtsy!

6 comments:

Katy said...

The radness of this just isn't translating in black and computer white, peeps! SF Etsy has important friends who want to see each and every one of us do something amazing. And this is just the start of that. YAY!

foreignspell said...

wow - we are so lucky to have such great people finding us these amazing opportunities!!

so in order to enter we aren't just making a digital mock up, we have to actually make a tangible print of our design on fabric - right?

excitement!!

evenhoward said...

you got it foreignspell!
We'll make the actual flap design on the fabric size and weight Katy talks about in the post. The digital image is just to send to Katy so she can make a mock-up of what your bag would look like.

If you want your flap to actually be a digital piece of art, that's fine, you just need to print it on canvas at the dimensions and weight specified.

Mark of Rickshaw bags has told us that anyone from our team who would like their flap made into a bag (like if you take part in the contest but don't win) can have a completely custom bag (you pick exterior and interior fabrics as well!) for $89.

~Even

SinceSass said...

Thank you Rebecca and Katy for putting this together! This is an amazing opportunity. Looking forward to seeing all the designs everyone comes up with and the event on the 25th!

Rick Kitagawa said...

This. Is. AWESOME!!! Thanks Katy and Rebecca for wrangling this awesome opportunity! Monkey + Seal shall be throwing down for sure!

vadi said...

I actually enjoyed reading through this posting.Many thanks.





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