IMG Optical Illusion Show Bag

If there had been an award for ‘Most Stylish Accessory’ at this years’ BPM, then IMG Stage Line would have carried it away, courtesy of the design brains at Hatch Creations.

IMG Stage Line produce a comprehensive range of audio equipment designed for all levels of DJ, from bedroom to superclub, and believe they can offer the market something different by providing a premium product at an affordable price.

As part of a bigger brief, our task was to create awareness in the UK of the IMG Stage Line brand, although well respected in its homeland Germany, the firm felt BPM offered an opportunity to showcase the brand and gain its deserved recognition and credibility amongst the DJ collective.

The branding campaign was spearheaded with the super-collectable Optical Illusion Show Bag. A cleverley angled IMG DJ mixer and headphones leading into the physical handles, adorn the front faces of this double sided show stopper.

Printed both sides in full colour the luxury crimson rope handled bags were hi-gloss varnished with a reinforced double lined turnover top & base for extra strengh. The 120mm deep gussets promote the name and URL. Such was it’s appeal, the promo piece flew off the exhibition stand and saturated the three day event.

The forementioned wider requirements of this brief were achieved in our IMG Brand Awareness Campaign, a cool combination of vivid artwork used across all media platforms such as tension banners, animated VT and press advertising, not to mention an awesome social media launch.

The concept of an optical illusion show bag is not a new one, a simple search online will throw up fantastic work from other designers, some of the more memorable ones that spring to mind would be the bag that looks like it’s carrier is lugging around a crate of beer or the bag advertising a gym where an athlete skipping seems pretty average until you realise the skipping rope forms the handle of the bag.

So with a chosen format in mind, team Hatch had a brainstorming session which involved reviewing a mammoth product portfolio, investigating different types of bags and handles, whilst working up some ‘VERY rough’ initial sketches. Above and left is a rare chance to peak at a raw working process here at Hatch.

At this stage I was not looking for the next Van Gough, but that initial spark of genius that could be scribbled down on a beer mat, regardless, you can see straight away the idea is gold!

It is just an illusion…

Following the initial presentation of ideas to the client, a decision was made to amalgamate a couple of favoured elements from separate designs. A rope handle being part of an audio cable as seen in ‘fig e’ was to be incorporated into the Audio Mixer, shot at a perspective angle ‘fig a’.

A stage 2 sketch (left) highlighted a technical flaw, that an audio cable would not both exit & enter the amp at same time. As he knew the IMG portfolio and also wanted to relay multiple products, it was actually our client, Neil’s suggestion to somehow include the headphones which in hindsight reinforced the DJ theme.

With the required products shipped to Hatch an experimental photoshoot got underway. After shooting multiple compositions in different lighting environments, the final solution would be an outdoor shot of the amp at a front tilted perspective with the headphones strategically hanging over the lower left quadrant. The headphone cable had to line up at the point where the drilled handle hole of the bag would be.

Although it would be a technical impossibility to carry around a powered up amplifier we played our ‘designers license’ card and re-shot the amp in the studio, this time with the power on. All of the cool electric blue lights could then be digitally overlayed and individually artworked onto the final piece.

With the raw photos from the shoot to hand and the bag template provided by the Chinese manufacturer we set about creating the final flat artwork. As this design was to appear on both faces of the bag we only needed to set up artwork for one gusset and one front face.

Before sending the artwork off to the manufacturer, the final stage of the project was to relay to the client that the optical illusion aspect of this bag would actually work. The above photo-realistic visual was created by the digital alchemists here at Hatch and it really is a testament to their skills when you consider that it was conceived before the bag was produced!

To see how Hatch can bring some smoke and mirrors to your next promo campaign call 0208 297 1200 and speak to one of our magicians… or one of their lovely assistants.