NokHoo Hoozits Design Blog

NokHoo Interview: Snapshots from Paris

2017-01-02T23:56:00.000-08:00

Today's NokHoo interview is with Anne, a School Historian who uses her Raining Paradise bag for work and, recently, took it with her on vacation to Paris! I asked Anne to describe how she uses her bag...

"I use my bag every single day for work. I work at a school where I switch campuses daily and have to bring my laptop with me back and forth. In the back compartment I keep my computer and any work files I need to travel with. In the front half of the main compartment I keep personal papers and I usually can get my purse into that area, too. I like having two internal sections since I can empty one when I get home and leave the work things undisturbed.

"The outside large pocket fits my makeup bag, spare USB and power cords. The side mesh pockets fit my phone and iPod in one side and either sunglasses or keys in the other. I like having two side pockets to keep my keys separate so they don't scratch things up, and I like that they are mesh so I can see at a glance where stuff is.

"I also use this as my go-to carry-on bag when I fly. I don't bring my computer with my when I travel, but this fits everything I need for flying, especially with my grade school-aged daughter. It fits a spare outfit for each of us, portable DVD player, a DVD case, a few books for me, puzzle books and magazines for her and my wallet and make-up. It fits under the seat in front of me so I can access it multiple times during the flight." 

What does she like most about her bag?

"I love that it is a stylish back pack. I was having serious hip and back problems to the point of pursuing surgery. I tried a Chiropractor first and, after an x-ray of my spine, we could see that I had a serious sideways bend in my lower back. This was from carrying a bag on one shoulder since high school and college. Ditching my old laptop bag and actually wearing both straps of my NokHoo bag has made a MAJOR difference in my health. Plus I get a million compliments on it!"

(I'm so happy to hear this! When I designed these bags, I really wanted them to be good for your back, especially if you have to lug around a lot of stuff.)

How did Anne's NokHoo do in Paris?

"I loved bringing my NokHoo bag to France with me. It didn't make me look like a tourist and it had everything I needed for the flight. It was a great bag to have on the serious walking days when I needed my water bottle and sweater and spare shoes."

Thanks to lovely Anne for posing with her Raining Paradise bag in Paris and for taking the time to chat about her bag. As always, check out our website to see the latest NokHoo styles!

Hoo-liday sale is on!!

2016-12-13T20:12:00.001-08:00

Totally amazing bags for $99 (instead of $149)... free shipping.
Through 1/2/17. So exciting.

here (my site): www.nokhoolaptopbags.com
or here (Etsy): www.etsy.com/shop/NokHoo

What I Learned...

2016-12-06T22:35:00.001-08:00

Hooray, my first retail show is over! It was six days of standing, smiling and hoping to connect with anyone who walked by. Before the show I was just nervous that I wouldn't break even but I did much more than that (!!!). Totally exhausting but many bags found new owners and I learned a TON.

Here are some things I learned:

1) Tiny tweaks to the display make a BIG difference! That little sign "Great for commuters, students... etc." totally sparked ideas.

2) People responded enthusiastically to the quality and design details — this was totally gratifying.

3) There's something in the air. One day (and only on that day) five people asked if the pen holders were for bullets. The next day (only on that day) four people asked if it was a makeup bag. One day I sold a ton of DeLoverly (the red one), the next day I sold everything but DeLoverly. So strange.

I could go on and on. I'm still processing it all and sorting out next steps. NokHoo is headed to a wholesale show in Seattle in January so I'll be applying what I've learned there for sure. Wish me luck!

Hello, Christmas Bazaar!

2016-11-26T00:20:00.002-08:00

Today I made my first real foray into selling at a craft show. At the eleventh hour (I think it was last Thursday) I decided to sign up for America's Largest Christmas Bazaar here in Portland. I had one week to prep a booth and, oh, also get ready to host Thanksgiving. Here are the pics from day one:

Here's what went wrong:

1) wet paint on the display (I painted it two days ago but it's so humid from the rain it didn't dry!!)

2) the sign was dropped in the rain as we unpacked the car and I had to re-work it as the show opened

3) I misread the paperwork and so we weren't able to set up until two hours before the show started

4) I ache from standing!!

Here's what went right:

1) great conversations with people who appreciated the workmanship and detail in the bags

2) the dude who gave me rum and coke on the sly after I had been standing for six hours (yes!)

3) awesome people watching

4) customers, hooray!!

All-in-all it was a great first day. Even what went wrong feels good once you're on the other side of it (I think that paint must be dry by now). I have another five days to go and will need a massage at the end but I'm especially enjoying the conversations with customers — feedback is priceless. Cheers to another good day and more selling tomorrow!

NokHoo Interview: The Cruising Crooner

2016-11-02T23:58:00.000-07:00

It's time for another interview and today I'm talking with Dustin, a talented musician and proud owner of the NokHoo Sirrush bag. Dustin is part of the a cappella quartet The Neptunes who currently grace the stage of the Celebrity Solstice cruise ship. When he's not traveling the high seas, he's home rehearsing new music. During one of his breaks from cruising, I asked Dustin to talk about how he uses his bag...

"I mainly use my bag for transporting my Apple laptop and music folder to rehearsal 3-5 nights a week. The thing I like most about my bag is that it's very versatile and has pockets for anything I need to bring. Not only is the inside clean and stylish, but there's a ton of space.
I use the main pocket with the velcro strap for my laptop so that I know it's securely set in the pocket. I use the remaining large pocket for my binder full of music as well as anything else I need (gum, cough drops, etc.). I also use the cell phone pocket on the strap to carry my iPod Touch which has a keyboard application on it."
Dustin's favorite detail is the buckle on the front of the bag (which I'm glad to hear since it was a custom-made labor of love). Here's a little snippet of The Neptunes singing "For the Longest Time" on their last cruise, Dustin is on the left. SUPER talented and a NokHoo fan, you can't beat that. Thanks for the interview, Dustin!

Drawing Dr. Seuss in the Desert

2015-06-24T13:54:00.001-07:00

I just came back from a trip to Phoenix, AZ and got to spend a little time in the desert. Coming from the lush NW I thought it looked so barren at first but the more time I spent wandering around the landscape, the more I grew to love it. I got really excited to draw the plants, which look like they came out of a Dr. Seuss book — so much quirky character.

My 4-year-old daughter was with me and one of the things I love to do is to draw collaboratively with her. I draw something, she draws on top and so on… the results get goofy but that's the fun of it. The drawing above is one of those. She named the plants (in case you're wondering why I wrote "crazy sparkle shirt" and "lined butterfly tattoo" next to the cacti).

Here's another (non-collaborative) drawing. I'm loving colored sketchbooks these days. I think it's 108 degrees in Phoenix now so I'm glad to be back but it was so beautiful I'll definitely return!

The Joy of Color Matching (or not)

2015-05-18T11:49:00.002-07:00

I was reminded today of the importance of color-matching and, feeling sure that everyone would find this fascinating, got all excited to write a blog post about it. I'm sitting at my favorite tea shop writing and re-writing these sentences and realizing that, perhaps, this is a REALLY nerdy topic and can't possibly sound interesting to anyone but me. But I'm going for it anyway so bear with me! Here's why I think color-matching is an unappreciated art…

Nearly everything you wear or have around your home has multiple parts that need to match. I was recently deconstructing old NokHoo sample bags and noticing how many elements had to match:
1) the main fabric
2) thread
3) elastic
4) zippers
5) mesh pockets
6) twill tape
7) straps

If you sew you probably have some idea how difficult it is to get all of these elements to coordinate. It's nearly impossible to source off-the-shelf bits and pieces that happen to match. I spent the first part of my career working for big companies that had whole departments in place for this and I spent HOURS staring at colors, commenting on them and sending them back until they were just right. (As any old coworker reading this can confirm!) Getting colors to match isn't as simple as mixing the same percentage of red, yellow and blue into a dye. Many times each element is made in a different factory, weather and humidity play a part and a huge factor is the type of material being dyed (plastic, elastic, natural and synthetic fabrics, etc.).

When I initially had the NokHoo bags made I was lucky to have a partner in India, where they have the manufacturing infrastructure to match colors. Now I'm back in the US and starting to source and manufacture here. I'm excited to work locally but, since US manufacturing has virtually disappeared, these tiny, but important, details are both difficult to find and difficult to afford. Which means that, when you accidentally find a color that matches, it's really exciting! Here's my serendipitous find that inspired this blog post…

Hooray! For my upcycling project a perfect match with the blue bag. I'm making this into a kiss lock purse which I'll post as soon as it's complete. So, when you look at the stuff you own, take a moment to appreciate all the matching parts, it's truly an art!

The Best Little Artist in the World

2015-05-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th birthday to my very favorite artist of all!

* this is a picture of a hug

Mistakes Were Made… And That's OK

2015-05-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this upcycling project and got all excited about kiss lock purses. In addition to the groovy name they're fun, girly and have that satisfying SNAP when you close them. I had great material to work with, between old bag embroidery and my unspeakably large fabric stash, but where to get the hardware? I STRONGLY DISLIKE cheap hardware. When I designed my NokHoo bags I went so far as to have all the hardware specially cast from metal because I couldn't source anything but plastic. (Why, WHY does everyone use plastic?? It breaks! Pet peeve.) Moving on… I couldn't find kiss locks at my regular Portland haunts but through frameyourbag on Etsy I ordered a few things to test. Thumbs up on the quality — hooray!

Being too impatient to do a prototype I jumped in with the fun stuff. I found a shape I liked, made some pattern pieces and worked out the minor complications of engineering the lining, exterior and closure so the seams wouldn't show. I first glued the bag to the closure, then stitched the frame onto the bag.

Voila! I like it. I'm going to sell it on Etsy! Oh, wait, the details… Does this happen to you? You embark on a project, work out the details, spend precious time on it and the results are exciting but, oh, there are those little things that didn't quite work out. For me it was the fiddly part of the bag that meets with the hardware...

Right there, do you see it? The fabric pulls and gaps where everything meets, also, that hinge sticks out. I should've made the top part wider. This picture doesn't show it but I also should have been more aware of the directionality of this fabric (it's like a grid) because it stretches in a funny way if it's not sewn straight. Mistakes were made. I can't sell it but this is my first try. Lessons were learned. I shall try again. The good news…

Check out the gorgeous hardware!

Upcycle Me!

2015-04-09T22:28:00.001-07:00

It's time. My original NokHoo development samples have been hiding away in a pile of boxes for a while now. Whenever I run across them I think, "I should get rid of those". But they stay in the box, cluttering my home and my mind. I hate sending them to the landfill because: 1) they represent blood, sweat and tears that went into NokHoo's beginnings 2) they have useful bits and 3) landfills suck. But today, in a creative/organizational/I've-had-it-with-all-this-junk fury, I whipped out the scissors and began cutting. Step one in my upcycling experiment. Above is the BEFORE photo. Below are the results (thus far)…

Mid-cutting. It's interesting to see the bones of the bags.

The good stuff.

I'll just pat myself on the back (or the backpack, ha ha) for starting out but… what's next? I figure I'll sew them into carrying cases of some sort. Any suggestions? Special orders? Help me bring these bags a new life! I'll blog my progress and hopefully have something to sell on Etsy at the end of the day. (That was a figure of speech, not the end of THIS day because it's late and I'm tired. A different day.)

Why Not?

2015-03-23T17:14:00.001-07:00

Hi, my name is Nicole and I'm terrible at social media. I was sharing my Twitter account with a friend and said to her, "it's been forever — like four months — since I last posted". She looked up my account and informed me that it had been well over a year. Right. Which helps explain why my blog has become a wasteland. My primary excuse is that I entertain a toddler most of the time. I still get credit for that but it's time to focus a little more on my business. My presence, that is. I've chosen to be a solo entrepreneur which, in this day and age, means one must be consistently present online. So in the spirit of doing just that, I'm giving my online self a makeover (maybe, if I can keep it up, I'll give my real self a makeover as a reward… good idea!). I shall blog more, sort out this Instagram and Twitter business, and do as much Facebook posting as I can stand. I'm going to tell you, online friends, more about myself and what I'm about. If you don't already know, I am an illustrator, textile and product designer and here is how my career unfolded…

I've always loved to create art but I never imagined it could become a career until some thoughtful college art professors asked, "why not?". This led me (after getting a degree in Geography) to say, "why not try art school?" which, when I finished, led to "why not apply to EVERY art job?". I landed in the world of fashion, creating artwork for kids' clothes and, eventually, to all sorts of surface and product design.

Initially I expected to do editorial or book illustration, probably subsidized by a barrista career, so it came as a surprise to be paid regularly for my work. I also discovered the wonderful world of product development and the joy of reaching a large audience. My right-brain loves to create images from the spinning mess of ideas in my head. My left-brain gets excited about putting those ideas into an orderly format and communicating the look and feel to people who will be constructing real, live products. The whole process is very much an act of creation and it thrills me: from the kernel of an idea to collaboration, trial and error, the birth of a product and then sharing that creation with the world.

My NokHoo bag designs came about after my (not yet) husband asked, "why not quit your job and move to Thailand for a while?" so I made the nail-biting decision to say "yes" to adventure and uncertainty. Of course I needed a bag to use during those adventures so "why not" design my own? And here I am, years later, navigating the adventure of design and the uncertainty of wearing all the hats in my own business.

It's only as I write this that I realize most of my big (and most interesting) choices came from that question, "why not?". As I embark on my next phase (the aforementioned online makeover) I'm responding to this question again. Honestly, I'm not crazy about putting myself out there. Letting the unknown world interact with my online self is just strange to me. (That must make me sound old.) But if I choose to continue running my own business I've got to get with the times. So "why not?". Maybe because it makes me uncomfortable is precisely why I should do it. Or maybe I'll hate it and change my mind later. Either way, welcome to my world. Feel free to leave encouraging comments!

NokHoo on Etsy (plus a coupon code!)

2015-03-01T21:00:00.002-08:00

My bags are now listed on Etsy! I need to get the ball rolling with sales and reviews so I'm offering 25% off for the month of March, but only if you buy on Etsy. The coupon code is "HiEtsy". If you've been waiting on a bag, now is the time!

A Full Life

2014-10-27T02:36:00.000-07:00

Beautiful, layered, dreamy artwork by Evaline Ness. It's worth reading about her personal life. She was married to Eliot Ness, the leader of "The Untouchables", who enforced prohibition in Chicago. She was also a student all her life, constantly learning and experimenting with her artwork, even after she became a commercial success.

The Frog Drama

2014-10-24T02:09:00.000-07:00

It seems like all I'm posting lately are mid-(20th)-century children's book Illustrators. Well, here's another one: Alexander Lindberg. I especially love this frog because it closely resembles the giant frog in one of the bizarre made-up stories I tell my toddler. We have a story repertoire that has devolved, over time, into complete nonsense — but she loves it. I wish I could report more about Lindberg but it was difficult to find info.

Kind of Fishy

2014-10-21T02:08:00.000-07:00

Does this fish have a moustache? Is it eating a squid? I do not know, but I like it. By Maria Szymańska, another favorite from Poland.

More from Poland...

2014-10-18T01:57:00.000-07:00

Since I'm sharing my obsession with Polish illustrators, today I've got Irena Przewlocka for you. Lovely, lovely work.

Finding Treasure

2014-10-15T01:33:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I keep blogging (yeah, irregularly) is to keep track of all the amazing artists that exist in the world. I just stumbled upon the work of Józef Wilkoń (his work above) and uncovered a treasure trove of mid-century children's book illustrators from Poland. Who knew? Now I do, and so do you.

Roadsworth

2014-10-12T23:26:00.000-07:00

Cool public space art by Roadsworth (aka Peter Gibson), a street artist who began his career covertly painting bike lanes in Montreal as a gentle protest against the city's lack thereof. He continues to use his artwork as a form of social activism. It's interesting to read his story here. See more of his work here.

A Perfect Balance

2014-10-09T01:21:00.000-07:00

I am head-over-heels for the work of Yoko Tanji. Everything is so perfect about these images, I'm at a loss for how to describe why I like them so much — is it the composition? the drawing style? The texture? Whatever it is, they amaze me.

Shady Tigers

2014-10-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

Ooh, I so love this image by Monica Ramos. The shady, monotone jungle and the orange tigers are a lovely combination.

Whale's Tale

2014-10-03T00:38:00.000-07:00

Artist Rich Gemmell is brilliant. Love the layering here, the pen work combined with (what looks like) watercolor and they fadey-in-out areas of the drawing. His site here.

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild

2014-09-30T00:44:00.000-07:00

A recent trip to the library introduced me to Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown. The pictures are beautiful, the humor is cute and the message is poignant. What's not to like?

Swarming Sharks and a Fairy Forest

2014-09-27T00:30:00.000-07:00

Beautiful work by Lara Paulussen. Lara is an art student in Germany who is already coming up in the art world. Good job, Lara!

Pretty in Blue

2014-09-24T00:09:00.000-07:00

Oh! What rich wallpaper from the Wallpaper Collective. The Artist is the fabulous Camilla Meijer.

Porch Perfect

2014-09-21T18:33:00.000-07:00

Some time this winter we plan to fix our back yard/porch situation. I want my porch to look like this. Sorry I can't credit the pic, it's from Pinterest — looks like it was scanned from a magazine (?).