Designing on Two Paths
Designing on Two Paths
When people who aren’t deeply embedded in the design world think about designers, there’s often a stereotype that comes to mind. The self-righteous, ivory-tower type. Nose in the air. Certain they know better than anyone else, what is best.
While that may be true for some, the reality for me, and for nearly every designer I’ve known and worked with over the years, is very different.
Most of us start from the same place. A fundamental desire to make something new and better. To imagine a future yet unseen, to strive to make something different. To push against what’s familiar and see if something different might evolve and serve people more thoughtfully.
That impulse is where everything begins.
Early Lessons, Learned the Hard Way
My Partner Trisha and I started a bag company in our early twenties, these early years were anything but structured from a design process standpoint.
That era was Wookey Backpacks. Ten years of struggling to manufacture bags in Bozeman using U.S. made raw materials. We were young, ambitious, and deeply creative. We were also myopic, under-resourced, and lacking the business infrastructure needed to truly leverage what we were building.
It was a wildly creative time. It was also, in hindsight, amateurish from a design process standpoint.
Those years taught me a lot, mostly by force. About manufacturing realities. About cost. About what happens when good ideas outpace execution.
Discovering Process
Our professional development truly took shape during my time at Macpac. That’s where we learned what process-based design really means.
Design brief / Creative ideation / Refinement / Build / Test / Repeat
That structure carried forward into the next chapter with Wookey Design Studio, where we honed our craft, and refined our design process. We became fluent in the give and take between client, designer, product, and craft. Process didn’t stifle creativity. It focused it.
For client work, that process governs everything. Design is shaped by functional requirements, end use, existing design language, seasonal trends, manufacturing constraints, and cost targets. It’s a constrained path, by necessity.
And it’s a valuable one.
The Two Paths of Design
It wasn’t until we decided to pursue our own vision with FARA that something crystallized for me. There are two very different paths in design.
The first is the constrained path.
A client provides a brief, parameters, requirements, and boundaries. Your role as a designer is to navigate those constraints with clarity and discipline.
The second path is something else entirely.
The free path.
This is the path of pure invention. A spontaneous idea. Thought followed quickly by action. It’s more joyful, more interesting, and somehow more fraught. There’s no client oversight. No external guardrails. Just you, your instincts, and your accountability to the end user.
I’ll admit, I probably still carry some of the reckless, joyful impulsiveness of my youth. At this point, I’ve decided to lean into it, with intention.
What Governs the Free Path
If there is one thing that rises to the top when designing for FARA, it’s the experience of the user.
Not in an abstract way, but in a deeply tactile, human sense.
The touch points matter. Buckles. Zipper pullers. Straps. The way the bag contacts your back. The feel of the fabric under your fingertips. How the bag moves with you, not against you.
These are the details that often get compromised in client work. Budgets don’t allow for custom molding. Timelines don’t support iteration. Manufacturing realities force tradeoffs. That’s understandable.
But when we’re on the free path, those details are the work.
Freedom Still Needs Discipline
Of course, the free path isn’t without its pitfalls. Without restraint, designs can spiral into exaggerated expressions of opulence. Spectra handbags and novelty pieces that exist more to impress than to serve.
That’s not the goal.
Even when designing freely, we hold ourselves accountable to a process-based system. The process still governs the outcome. Every seam and every stitch has a reason for being there. The bag still needs to be manufacturable. It still needs to be durable. It still needs to be attainable.
We are tethered to the ground, even when our aspirations reach for the stars.
Designing for People, Not Pedestals
At the end of the day, user experience is the most important part of our design process.
Who is using this bag, and why?
How are they moving through their day?
Where does friction appear, and where can it disappear?
Design isn’t about knowing better than everyone else. It’s about listening closely, observing honestly, and building with empathy.
That philosophy sits at the core of FARA. It’s also what shaped my recent conversation with Carryology as part of their How to Design a Backpack series.
Design, for me, is not about the pedestal. It’s about the path. And making that journey feel just a little more intuitive, durable, and human.
