How to Bug Out your Bag

The sky is burning. Layers of red and orange blaze up to the darkening clouds that hover on the horizon, intertwined with the smell of smoke, blood and…do I hear screaming? And so begins the end of the world.

Or so our vivid imaginations would have us believe. With the apocalypse craze that seems to be running through our current media culture; The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, World War Z, The Road, The Leftovers, even Pride and Prejudice with Zombies, we find ourselves revelling in our element here at O Street – with almost daily discussions on all of the above and more, we’ve begun to establish the naïve cocksureness of ‘fiction educated’ survivalists. “Obviously,” we scorn to ourselves “you don’t OPEN the chained door. Geez.”

Tessa has actually started accumulating a fairly unnecessary amount of flint strikers, whilst her amazon order history definitely has just enough ‘instant food packets’ on it to be considered suspicious. Especially when bearing in mind her YouTube suggestions of ‘150 uses for paracord’. All in all, it’s clear there is one thing on her mind: it’s bug out bag time.

If you’re wondering, “What’s a bug out bag? Why would you need bugs? Who’s in charge here?” you clearly have some work to do before the end of the world arrives. Lets look at the facts.

According to wikipedia:

“A bug-out bag is a portable kit that contains the items one would require to survive for seventy-two hours when evacuating from a disaster…other popular names include ‘Personal Emergency Relocation Kits’ (PERKs) GO Bag and GOOD (Get Out Of Dodge) bag.”

Basically this bag is the embodiment of that age old British Scouts motto – “BE PREPARED”. This bag has the potential to cover your butt in any scenario; from natural disasters, wartime displacement or perhaps a contagious infection that encourages the dead to rise again and feast on the living.

Whatever your emergency, we’ve developed the perfect GOOD GD PERK (Get Out of Dodge Graphics Designer’s Personal Emergency Relocation Kit). Read on to find out what made the cut…

1. Water: Bobble 34 oz. Filtering Water Bottle

A water bottle might seem like an obvious choice, but when the world goes up in flames it’s highly likely that freshly bottled Voss water might be hard to come by. So we’ve gone for the next best thing with this filtering hipster water bottle. This guy will do a marvellous job filtering your dirty stream water to make it deliciously drinkable. Just watch you’ve not got any zombie juices running in from upstream bodies; there’s no filtering that out folks.

2. Weapon: Retractable X-Acto Knife/Utility Blade

As any designer who’s worth their weight in packaging mock-ups knows, X-Acto knives aren’t to be handled lightly. With a stylish retractable blade that is razor sharp, this tool will set you up for easy zombie dispatches; just watch out for your own fingers – this blade won’t discriminate who or what it makes fleshy ribbons of.

3. Shelter: Large Format Cutting Mat

This large format cutting mat probably won’t be the comfiest sleeping matt you’ve ever used, but at least it’s perfectly proportioned. Plus, if you double up, you can easily make a lean-to tent — all whilst being able to measure out anything you need with minute precision.

4. Food: To-Go Ware 3 Tier Food Carrier

Whatever you’re opting to munch on, be it vegan or cannibal, it should definitely be packaged up in this stylish stainless steel food container. Great for layering different courses; or separating your foraged berries from your dried meats etc. etc.

Extras: Zippo lighter / Beanie hat / Journal and pen

Some bonus items for the super prepared out there; zippo lighter – um…duh; beanie hat – who knows when central heating will ever be a thing again? and of course a journal and pen – so you can document your own personal emotions and experiences, then sell the resulting graphics/story when the world puts itself to rights again.

Now that we’ve got that covered, its back to discussing spoilers in the studio.

Stay safe out there.