Yanko Design Reviews the Revolution Rolling Pack
You’ve got a laptop bag, an overnight bag, a travel bag, a duffle bag, a gym bag, a separate bag for your shoes, your clothes, your tech, your camera, your drone, your toiletries. A different bag for every different purpose. Now I don’t mean to turn this into some George Carlin-style comedy bit, so I’ll get right to the chase. Think of each separate bag as a physical book. You could either own ten different books that fill up your entire bookshelf… or just buy an e-book reader that holds hundreds of books in its slim, versatile design. The Onli Travel Revolution is the e-book of backpacks.
Designers: David and Kyle Logan
Now Live on IndieGogo: $299 $369 ($70 off).
Rather aptly called the Onli because it’s quite practically the only bag you’ll ever really need, this clever little number first debuted in 2019. Created by father-son-duo Dave and Kyle Logan, the Onli made quite the splash when it debuted, but its true success was weathering the pandemic when global travel (and the basic need to have backpacks/travel cases) came to a grinding halt. Not only did the Logans manage to clear their inventory even in the midst of a raging pandemic and supply chain toss-up, the Logans even managed to develop and prototype the Onli 2.0. Now in its second avatar (as a successor to the original Onli Venture), the Onli Travel Revolution Rolling Pack doubles down on the vision of the ”modular travel revolution”, with a uniquely creative 3-in-1 design that basically gives you a backpack for every single situation.
At its heart, the Onli Travel Revolution is a 3-bag system that’s designed to be infinitely modular yet independently versatile. Here’s what I mean – let’s skip that e-book analogy from earlier and think of the Onli Travel Revolution as a S’more. Made from a piece of chocolate, a marshmallow, and a graham cracker, the S’more tastes great on its own, but separate its ingredients and they’re all tasty individually too, or even when had in pairs of whatever combination you want. The Onli Travel Revolution champions that very logic with its 3-bag system, comprising a slim messenger tote bag, an expandable daypack, and an expandable spinner bag. The three separate bags cover a whole range of scenarios, proving to be incredibly handy when used independently. However, zip them together and they merge into a ‘superbag’ of sorts, giving you all the benefits of multiple bags, in one single backpack that can then either be carried on your shoulders, or rolled across a walkway on its 4 spinner wheels.
The ‘meat’ of the Onli Travel Revolution is its expandable spinner, the largest of the bags. Equipped with four 360° rotating wheels and a telescopic handle, the expandable spinner is the perfect size to travel on flights with. It’s ideally sized to go right into the cabin with you, has a tapered design that slides under most airline seats, boasts an expandable design that lets you store more if you choose to, and has all the compartments, pockets, and zips needed to organize your belongings. It also has zippers on its front and back that let you attach the other two bags on each side for added convenience.
Left: Messenger Tote Pack. Right: Expandable Daypack.
The remaining two bags also have their unique capabilities based on your needs. The front messenger tote bag is a slick little number, designed to store essential tech or your everyday belongings. It’s designed to be large enough to fit a 17-inch laptop should you choose, and comes with a handle for quick grabbing, a high quality “seatbelt webbing” singular strap for tote or crossbody-style wearing, which morphs into two shoulder straps in case you want to wear it as a conventional backpack. If you choose to use it independently, it has its own fold-out bottle holder, and even comes with RFID-blocking pockets and lockable zips. Moreover, it can attach to the back of any flight seat and has its own built-in ‘shelf’ that zips open and acts as a makeshift laptop table while you’re on your flight or on a bus. Don’t want to use it as a separate entity? Well, it zips right onto the aforementioned spinner bag, or even onto the rear expandable daypack.
The 8-piece Packing Cube Set
The expandable daypack is kind of like your laptop bag, but by virtue of its versatile, modular design, it’s just volumes better than any laptop bag you’ll probably own. Just like the tote, the expandable daypack stores a 17-inch laptop, along with a whole slew of other items. It opens flat like a suitcase (making it TSA friendly), allowing you to pack items in it like one, and even extract belongings without fishing around and making a mess of your belongings. The expandable design lets your daypack virtually triple in internal volume, becoming a “weekender bag” if you so desire, and both the expandable daypack, and the spinner bag are designed to accommodate Onli’s 8-piece packing cube set, giving you the power to segregate all your belongings right within one bag so you don’t have to carry 10 different bags for your 10 different scenarios. For all intents and purposes, your laptop, camera, chargers, toiletries, and undergarments can all sit within one bag in their own individually segregated compartments… should you choose.
The 3-in-1 Onli Travel Revolution can be used as a singular superbag, as three individual bags, or in any 2+1 format. The bags unite together when you’re looking for a single cohesive solution, but if at any point of time you just need one of those bags and not the whole nine yards, just detach the bag you need and you’ve got yourself convenience without the bulk. Cleverly enough, the modular design also makes it easier to stash the entire Onli Travel Revolution in a plane’s overhead compartment. Just split the Onli into its three separate elements and they’re now easier to store than one large bulky bag.
The Onli Travel Revolution isn’t just cleverly designed… Now in its second iteration, it’s well made too. The entire backpack is crafted from a durable, water and dust-resistant fabric, and comes with top-of-the-line YKK zippers that also happen to be lockable for the main compartments on your bags. The bags are purpose-built, yet versatile, modular yet individually useful, and have a unique way of fulfilling every need for every scenario, be it for casual holidaying, business travel, trekking, city commute, a trip to the gym, the field, or even the next city. This isn’t Onli’s first rodeo, and the company’s worked considerably hard to deliver every single one of its 2019-edition Onli Travel Venture bags to their backers, even despite the pandemic. During that time, the Logans even managed to refine their design and build out the Onli Travel Revolution Rolling Pack prototype, launching it just in time as the world begins to open up and international travel starts ramping up to pre-pandemic days. The Onli Travel Revolution now comes in 6 different colors and starts at $79 on Kickstarter for just the slim messenger tote or daypack (if you just want the one), $139 for just the expandable spinner, or $269 if you want the entire modular travel kit.
Now Live on IndieGogo: $299 $369 ($70 off).
*Used with permission of Yanko Design