Larsen Idealog

NOT a throwaway

This must-have, ecologically appropriate canvas bag designed by Anya Hindmarch sold out quickly in Whole Foods stores in the New York area last week.

Apart from the eco advantages of the bag, what makes it so appealing? Let’s start with the message. The self-referential statement — “I’m not a plastic bag” — is utterly charming, and the first-person conversational tone is just right. Much less appealing would be “This is not a plastic bag.” Or simply, “Not a plastic bag.”

With the simple contraction “I’m,” Ms. Hindmarch has successfully anthropomorphized the bag, transforming it from a ho-hum cotton sack to a cheerful, eco-aware sidekick. And even though the bag itself is talking, Ms. Hindmarch did not, thankfully, choose to add quotes around the friendly proclamation. Or any punctuation at all. “I’m not a plastic bag!” would be a bit too exuberant.

Hindmarch’s choice of curlicue typography is perhaps a tribute to the kitschy graphics on so many of the plastic bags we throw away, some 100 billion a year, according to the Worldwatch Institute. And the firm “NOT” in bold, sans serif type makes its point, if a bit belligerently, like an insistent child stamping her foot: “I’m NOT a little girl.”

“The type treatment doesn’t make the bag look self-important,” says Larsen design director Peter de Sibour. “And that’s why it’s successful.”

Successful is the word. “What started out as a small effort in London to reduce the number of biodegradable-resistant plastic bags that litter the landscape has become a wildly successful worldwide campaign,” reported the The New York Times on Wednesday, July 18. According to designer Hindmarch, all the bags have been sold in the United States, although a few still seem to be available on eBay as of this posting.

Ms. Hindmarch’s appealing design may owe something to a predecessor, the “little brown bag” (and its siblings “medium brown bag” and “big brown bag”), available in fashionably reusable brown rubber.

— That's words on words