Every other bag we make, you get to look at. Not this one.

Think about what a backpack actually is. It’s the one object you own that points permanently away from you. It goes on your back at eight in the morning and it stays there — through the train, the lift, the queue for coffee, the walk across the car park — and every single person behind you gets the full show while you get nothing. The entire surface area of this thing is aimed at strangers. You are, functionally, carrying an advertisement for a company that has never met you.

So it may as well be worth looking at. Squares of Madness is two graphic designs Bert Ernie made years apart, laid over each other and then — rather than picking one, because he doesn’t do that — cut through with a checkerboard and both left running. Square on: the first. Square off: the second. Thousands of them, all the way across. He layered bump and shadow effects over the top so the whole thing reads as woven fabric, which is his favourite joke and one he will not stop telling.

Here’s what that does on a backpack. The person two seats down sees a single shimmering textile. The person who sits next to you sees it detach into individual squares and can suddenly make out both designs at once, arguing. It resolves and dissolves depending entirely on how far away you are. It is a properly good optical trick, and you — the person who paid for it — will never experience it. Not once. Not ever.

Bert thinks this is correct. He points out that the back of the bag is soft mesh, so the art faces out and you get the comfortable bit. He considers this a fair division of labour.

Squares of Madness backpack print file — the checkerboard interleave of two artworks across the front panel — The print file. It runs across the front panel, over the sides and up across the lid, straight through the seams — which is why the front zip pocket almost disappears into the pattern until you go looking for it.

Made properly, printed to order by Printful, ethically, the moment you buy it. Nothing sits in a warehouse.

100% polyester
Fabric weight: 9 oz./yd.² (305 g/m²)
Dimensions: H 16⅛” (41cm), W 12¼” (31cm), D 3⅞” (10cm)
Capacity: 4 gallons (15l)
Maximum weight limit: 44lbs (20kg) — but see below
Water-resistant material
Large inside pocket with a separate compartment for a 15” laptop, front pocket with a zipper, and a hidden pocket with zipper on the back of the bag
Top zipper has 2 sliders with zipper pullers
Silky lining, piped inside hems, and a soft mesh back
Padded ergonomic bag straps from polyester with plastic strap regulators
Printed, cut, and hand-sewn by our expert in-house team

Fifteen litres, a padded sleeve that swallows a 15″ laptop, a zip pocket on the front, water-resistant fabric so the color stays put in the rain, and a hidden zip pocket flat against your back for the things you’d rather not lose — the loudest object in the room, and it keeps secrets. One last thing. Turn it over. The print goes across the bottom too: the surface that lives on classroom floors and train carriages and the underside of desks, seen by nobody, ever, including you. He did it anyway. Of course he did.

Printful rate this to 44lbs. Bert reckons you could do that. For about a week. Then the zip has opinions and the seams start writing letters. Load it to half that — 22lbs, 10kg — and it’ll still be going in five years. We’d rather tell you that now than sell you a bag twice.

Too loud to ignore.

Backpacks

Squares Of Madness Backpack