DO.GROUP is the design partnership of two recent graduates of The University of Texas School of Architecture. We are currently working in Austin and NYC.
We didn't set out to start a bag company - in May 2013 we just wanted to graduate. After five years of architecture school, Megan and I had each nearly completed a rigorous design curriculum which included a professional residency program at offices in Austin and New York - both of which liked us enough to hire us once we graduated. Our minds were everywhere but our design studio. But that all cha
nged when we started chasing an idea: a reusable bag that didn't suck. By our final pin-up we were close. We had a prototype made of a material thin enough to be cut by a razor, yet strong enough to resist any further tearing. Our classmates were dubious. "Let's see if it holds Karl," my friend Wes said flatly, and without hesitation all 25 pounds of Karl the Dog was lofted into a perfect teardrop bundle. The material didn't give. With heads nodding in approval it was a relief to see our professors pleased. We were closer than ever to finishing the semester and moving on to our new careers across the country. But there was a problem: we wanted to keep going. So, over the next year we never stopped working. By September, after testing dozens more prototypes, we finalized our design . By November, DO.GROUP, LLC was legally established. And by January, we were patent-pending and doing our best to learn from as many suppliers, manufacturers, marketers, and anyone else who would talk to us. Today, as we work toward Bundle's first production run, we have realized we will never be done learning by doing. And that's a good thing! With each challenge we've come a step closer toward our goal of empowering young designers with the knowledge to bring their products to market. We hope you'll join us on this adventure as we continue to put one foot in front of the other in order to give design to the world. Design needs doing! Chris Ferguson and Megan Marvin
Founding Partners, DO.GROUP
