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This past year, Cowie and Fox created a reusable, colourful, yoga bag for Semperviva. The dual sided artwork has been quite eye catching all across Vancouver. I’ve seen it on almost every bus I take and even in the local grocery store.

Recently the bags have been spotted on the other side of the world in Greece.

If you’re wondering why the bags have recently been spotted in Greece, find out more information here

First things first, I’m not the kind of guy to brag about my work. I hope not anyway. BUT this is a real phenomenon and I’ve never really spoken publicly about it. By now anyone living in a medium to large city in Canada is familiar with that red, reusable lululemon bag. It is absolutely everywhere. A day does not go by here in Vancouver where I don’t I see at least one (usually more) walk by me on the arm of someone out and about in the city. I attribute this to a few key factors; its slogans are inspiring to the target market, it is associated with a cool, hip brand in that market and, well, it’s a cool design. Design wise I don’t consider it my Magnum Opus, but it is the one thing I’ve done in my career that everyone immediately recognizes.

The thing is it was never actually designed to be what it became. Long before it was on posters, bags, tech tops and water bottles around the world, it was originally created around 2004 as a way to creatively display Chip’s wordy manifesto on the back cover of a printed lululemon magazine we were working on here at Cowie and Fox. (I’ve still got a few copies actually if anyone is interested.)

In the last few months, it has been hard for me to ignore the plethora of, dare I say “knockoffs” of the design. I’ve included one here from a the window of a clothing store in Yaletown I saw the other day. I see it even features some very similar wording to the original one…

-dtm