Mauro Bianucci: Carga Bags

Mauro Bianucci's Carga Bag collection has been celebrated in the press as an "admiration for form and felt" that "speaks for itself." The idea originated while Mauro tinkered with some leftover materials from a previous project. The line is now sold at stores in select cities including New York, LA, Barcelona, Paris, and others. Behance caught up with Mauro to discuss the hard work behind Carga Bags.

Turning an idea into something tangible requires perspiration, professionalism, and action! Mauro recalls that, to get the line off the ground, the first thing he had to do was "stop procrastinating and complaining about how difficult it was to have a product in the market."

Creatives have the tendency to go from idea to idea without execution. At some point you need to get determined, perhaps out of frustration. As Mauro explains it, "Many times I had (made progress) with different projects but they had died before really getting anywhere. (With Carga Bags) I actually pushed the prototypes I had done for myself a bit further and investigated how I would be able to produce them in a larger scale. The trigger to take that extra step was that some key people saw these prototypes and encouraged me to pursue the production -- or asked for bags to be made for them."

To stay organized, Mauro focuses on actions and creates his own methods for productivity. "I try to keep some discipline with my seemingly ever-growing to-do list. I have tried many organization and management tools (both on- and off-line) and still haven't found the combination that works for me. Right now I am in love with my self-made post-it to-do list inside a clear cover Muji notebook that comes with a clear pocket too. But as always, the thought of having found the ideal solution only lasts a while..."

As Carga Bag's best representative, Mauro must become more comfortable selling the line and introducing the collection to others. "I'm not used to thinking of myself as a sales person, and I'm really bad at handling rejection. I also like for the products to speak by themselves and not having to explicitly go through their details. Once the relationship is set, we are all in love and it is all good..."

In the early stages of his idea, Mauro maintained his focus with discipline. "I started with a very small budget and found the right people to produce a small batch. This helped because it made me feel I wasn't getting into a big risk. I'd say one important point was to keep the product line reduced to only a few items. Offering only 3 products made it easy to re-stock and handle orders."

Mauros's words of wisdom? "Stay true to what you think (and feel) is right. Work hard. Don't get frustrated by the things you haven't accomplished yet. Learn, observe, learn, improve, learn. My favorite quote: 'Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.' So you have nothing to fear!"