HP Ultrabook Laptop Bag Design Competition

by The Hairpin Sponsors

One of the beauties of technology is that it’s leveled the playing field for distributing creative endeavors. No longer does a brilliant artist with a winning idea need to tread a minefield of middlemen — today a great design can be created in Photoshop by an amateur with no industry connections and be made available not just to the general public but also to people who can put that idea into action.

In partnership with Lifetime’s Project Runway and the release of their new, sleek Ultrabook, HP is providing an opportunity for aspiring designers to get their ideas noticed. In a world of uniform-looking technological hardware, the accessories that house them are key to establishing individual style. As Mark Zuckerberg’s character in The Social Network declared, Facebook (and technology in general), is similar to fashion because “fashion is never finished.” To exemplify the correlations between the fashion and technology industries, let’s play a quick rhetorical game of Fashion or Tech:

  • This highly anticipated new release that will lead to mob scenes. Fashion_or_Tech?
  • Rapidly changing trends. The “it” item seems to change quarterly. Fashion_or_Tech?
  • Consumers are passionate ambassadors for individual companies. Some people are just as quick to not be seen dead with certain items. Fashion_or_Tech?

Along these lines, HP has encouraged amateur designers to submit their laptop bag designs to their HP + Project Runway contest. While the submission portion of the contest has ended, an expert design panel made up by Jill Fehrenbacher of Inhabat, Linyee Yuan of Core 77, and Mondo Guerra of Project Runway have curated the submissions down to 40 semi finalists. And now, for your involvement: Check out the designs and vote for your favorite. The 5 designers whose submissions get the most votes will each receive their own HP Ultrabook. The expert panel will then choose 1 winner from those 5 finalists, and that winner will get the grand prize of $10,000.

Check out the designs and vote here now!

This post is sponsored by the sleek, stylish, lightweight HP Spectre XT Ultrabook™, inspired by Intel. Vote for your favorite bag design!