A 15-inch MacBook Pro Backpack That Works!
Creative professionals rely on their gear to work. Whether you're a music producer, photographer, character, product or interior designer you need everything in your arsenal to be there for you each and every time.
This is how we approached the design of our 15-inchMacBook Pro backpack. A compact, lightweight workhorse designed to be there for you when you need it. It's not flashy. It's not big. It's not trendy. It's also not bulk or relatively expensive.
In essence, it's the perfect pack for a creative professional on the go.
MacBook Pro 15-inch Backpack - Behind the Design
This is an except from an interview with MacCase President Michael Santoro about the company's MacBook Pro 15-inch Backpack.
JKD - MacCase has been making packs for Apple laptops almost as long as there have been Apple laptops. How have they evolved over the last 2 decades?
MS - Several things have changed racially. We try to keep one version of every product we've ever made. A lot of companies do this. Sometimes I'll go back an revisit some of the older designs. There are a lot of good ideas in them.
One thing I notice is how much lighter the newer designs are. This MacBook Pro 15-inch backpack is about half of the weight of a model we made for the 15" PowerBook. Which is really scary if you think about it because a 15" PowerBook is about 100 lbs heavier than a current 15 Apple laptop!
JKD - How have you achieved this? How have you gotten the weight out?
MS - I think it's the same way cars and sneakers and bikes have, through the use of new materials. The foams we are using now are much more sophisticated and advanced then the foams we were using 15 years ago. We can provide the same level of protection with a lot less material. Less material will generally lighten the weight.
Secondly, would be the use of the fabrics and the type of fabrics were using. Fabrics are a tough aspect of soft goods design. Go to light and you affect the long term durability. If you spec a heavier fabric, then you might be asking the customer to drag around a lot of weight then don't really need to. It's a tough balance to strike.
Getting back to your original question, though, another thing I noticed was we never did a dedicated leather backpack. I know I was working on one for a while but I think the price was prohibitive. All our packs have always been in nylon. We do backpack versions of several of our leather models but they are designed first and foremost as cases.
JKD - Is a leather model something you're still perusing?
MS - I'm always working on something. So much of what we work on never sees the light of day. It's kind of sad.
JKD - So what's next for the MacCase backpack design? Is there another size or version lurking in the wings?
MS - As with many of the things we do, a lot depends on what Apple does next. If they being back the 17", we'll have a pack for that.
