Carryology » Hacks

Hacks | Beer Carton Organizer

ando — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 22:51:56 +0000

Customising a desk organizer

Do you remember our recent post on Chato Aganza’s Moleskin wallet hack? As art director for Surfing Mag, it’s kinda Chato’s job to flip crew out, so we thought it would be fun to show his binder/desk organizer. It’s perhaps not quite as refined as a Hermes, but it still carries a certain charm…

Good carry lets you be as comfortable on the road as you are at home, no matter where you are roaming.

Good customizing helps you find a place for even your weirdest items. This letter opener is certainly qualifying for the weird bit.

If one is good, more is better. The staple equivalent of a bar tack.

Elastic can be flicked when boredom threatens.

Chato has shown incredible constraint in not doodling over the bar code.

‘Drink Cool’ feels like a pretty good mantra out of all this. However I feel like we should leave you with a more profound art quote. Unable to find one of those, we’ll leave you with a faux-profound quote, dressed up to sound much wiser than we are:

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” ~Scott Adams

The Moleskine Wallet

Leather — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 18:00:08 +0000

The Moleskine Wallet

We kinda start acting like little kids who’ve eaten too much sugar when we see interesting carry hacks. It’s so rad to see people start hacking and tweaking to create something that suits their lifestyle. We just stumbled across this latest one, where a friend (Chato Aganza) had started customising his Moleskine to be his fulltime wallet.

Being the Art Director at Surfing Magazine, Chato spends a lot time sketching out and jotting down ideas in his Moleskines. So as you’d imagine, carrying around a Moleskine, digital camera, phone, keys, wallet, etc there’s a chance you going to get weighed down by everything and start to walk with a funny limp.

With the idea of carrying less on his mind, Chato took a pocket sized Moleskine and has thrown his keycards and cash in the back section (the area that has that neat little flap) and taped his security door card (for work) on the inside of the front cover. Yes, not groundbreaking stuff so far, Chato has only just started his customisation.

The next step, which is yet to be finished, involves the sticking of around ten pages together in the back of the book. Why? Two reasons. One, to create little card pockets for easy access to regular used cards. This will be done by cutting slits in between the ten pages and then sewing/sticking the pages together to create a pocket. Two, much like those old bibles you see that have had the pages cut away for a small bottle of whiskey to sit in, Chato is going to cut away a place for his pen. Thus getting rid of the bulge the pen delivers and creates a nice flat Moleskine that sits in your pocket all snug…

Pretty neat huh!? Which leads us to our next question, have any of you guys got some amazing hacks you want to share??

Voile Ski Straps

Leather — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 11:18:24 +0000

Voile Ski Straps

Ski straps are a useful item, in a similar vein to bungie cords for a car. At first glance they look like a dog collar (or cat?, but who owns cats these days?). But the old school ski strap can be put to loads of MacGyver tricks. We recently stumbled on a great pitch on KK , where author Matt Bresnahan was endorsing them as ‘something every skier should own’. He looks at the Voile straps, available between 9″ and 25″…

In Matt’s words:

I have used mine to attach skis and poles to my pack, hold the pieces of a broken pole together, attach skis to snowmobiles, affix a tele boot to a ski with a broken cable binding, hold skins to skis, and of course, hold my skis together. I’ve seen them used to jury-rig backcountry toboggans for patient evacuation, and as an improvised knee strap

If the ski strap is the duct tape of the ski touring world, we started to wonder what other ‘fix everything’ devices exist in specialist communities? Climbers use carabiners and finger tape for solving any problem. Cyclists use inner tubes and rubber cement. But there must be some other gold out there amongst our fine readers just waiting for a larger audience to share with… Go on, share!

Carrying Bike Locks

ando — Fri, 14 May 2010 07:09:59 +0000

The bigger they are, the harder they carry

Cycling is taking over the world. It’s going to solve global warming, world peace, and be the next US president.

The downsides to cycling are back baths and thieving scum, and it’s in the area of thieving scum that things are getting fun.

Bike locks are taking every form and arrangement in an attempt to deter theft. The one consistency is how big and heavy the good ones are (ie: very big and very heavy).

This means crew are finding new ways to carry them. So much so that it’s becoming like a tribal badge. We love it, we salute this creativity, and we encourage all to share their craziness.

In the meantime, here’s a few of the easier ways to carry your bike lock:

There are all sorts of belt loops being offered, from leather to nylon webbing. Personally we prefer to jam the lock behind our regular belts, but we are not normal (in any way whatsoever).

Many bike oriented backpacks and messenger bags now include a U-Lock holder. Incase and Mission Workshop are two of the better ones.

And we’re not quite sure what is going on here, but it looks impressive:

Do you have a better way? Send us a picture via Twitter, Facebook, or just send us a link to the pic.

Note: This post was triggered by Jane. Jane is the bright spark behind Sugru.com (the raddest mouldable stuff for hacking anything and saving the world). Jane’s job is to see the world differently, and this is how she carries her lock…

Your Hoody

Leather — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:27:49 +0000

Winter’s coming, the chill will soon be upon us and everyone will be diving for their favourite hoodys. It’s just what happens. Now most people just slide on their hoodies with no thought for any further use that their beloved hood can provide. Did you know you can transform your hoody into a baby carrier? or a strap bag?

Enter Just Undo It – Just undo it is a collection of reversible objects that could be made from a hoodie at no cost. Kinda crazy to see, but it all looks functional once finished. Pretty interesting actually.

They have a bunch of step by step photo instruction on how to transform your hoody into an amazing carry device (or sleeping) and have even sliced together a couple of clips for you to check..

Genius.

No related posts.

Furoshiki – The simple wrapping square

ando — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:56:58 +0000

Simple is kinda nice…

For all our love of feature rich bags, there’s times when the Ikea bag or a simple wrap forms the perfect carry aid.

So here’s a little look in to the timeless art of Furoshiki – that beautiful Japanese way to carry things using a simple fabric square.

After the jump…

The Japanese Ministry for the Environment launched Mottainai Furoshiki in 2006 as an initiative to reduce waste. This Furoshiki was the key message piece.

Furoshiki for many Japanese are like skate decks for many street artists – an amazing canvas to get creative on.

And then there’s the Furoshiki inspired products:

Seto's Furoshiki laptop wrap

Sorry for teasing – unfortunately this is no longer available

And a PSP cover from WaSaBi

Yeah, that’s probably enough for now…

If you want to explore more, furoshiki.com has a number of good resources, YouTube is gold as always, and Kirai has a few good basics.

We’d love to know if you guys have any favourite tricks with Furoshiki inspiration?

To kick it off, the top photo is of my better half, carrying our BYO wine with a head scarf. When finished carrying, the scarf goes back around her hair.