“I have a lot of colours on there… it just becomes colourful.”
Risha Senthurvasan
Pinterest isn’t the only place for finding inspiration. To kickstart expressing yourself with the next great idea, it’s time to start looking across the hall.
If you look around the school, you’ll see stylish inspiration all around you. Endearing plushies, distinctive tech and colourful buttons bring everything on our backpack to life.
Stickers
“I don’t like my laptop simple, I consider it boring.”
Anjali Paul
Who wants a bland, grey laptop lying around? Tech is designed to look sleek and minimalist for one reason or another, but it’s also a canvas to lay down whatever you can think of. At least that was the thought process of Anjali Paul.
When it came to decorating her MacBook, she knew she had to look away from the screen: flowers. Her love of preservation gave her a first inkling of what to do. Whenever she receives flowers, before anything else, she does her best to preserve them in a drawing book or create beautiful vases.
She utilizes her love of flowers to remember her family and honour them with her art.
“[I] like drawing my loved ones from the pictures of them and putting the leaves, the petals of the flowers and sticking them on the drawing paper and making something out of it,” Paul said.
Once she found these bright lavender flower stickers at the dollar store, it was a match made in heaven. Anjali raves about the dollar store’s quality stickers for the price. It’s her go-to for stickers with resin borders, which was a big selling point for her.
Her personality speaks in droves with its bright colours that liven its shiny backdrop.
Buttons
“It’s just fun and it’s cute.”
Risha Senthurvasan
Whether it’s for activism, representation or to express the things you love, buttons are one of the only forms that work better the more you have.
Early childhood education student Risha Senthurvasan says her Care Counts button shares awareness of the work she and her colleagues do. As of right now, it’s the only button she has on her backpack, but it’s displayed proudly, although she does plan on adding to her collection with some of her favourite games, including Genshin Impact.
After she adds those buttons, she hopes some social connection follows.
“Maybe someone points out ‘I play Genshin Impact too!’” Senthurvasan said.
Her personality shines similarly to that of business administration student Lilian Nguyen. Full of style and flair, her backpack is almost fully covered with her favourite interests.
Every student inevitably makes their way to the thrift store, where she got some of the comic buttons. Her creativity is on display by using them to create a story right on her own. Two characters from a Chinese dramatic novel can be seen talking with one another in comic fashion.
“I was trying to make them converse with each other,” she says.
The remainder of her backpack is filled with miscellaneous buttons that each tells its own little story about her. Whether it’s the LGBTQIA+ pride, the Ne Zha film or the Idea Lab button, each has its own bit of her personality for the world to see.
Plushies
“He kind of reminded me of him, so I’m just going to keep it with me all the time.”
Maria Cayo Cuenca
Buttons are just part of this student’s ensemble. A few plushies finish the look with one of her favourite characters from Honkai: Star Rail and an adorable rabbit plush gifted to her from her aunt.
“It was supposed to be one of the plushies I have on my bed, but it had the attachment, so why not put that on my bag?” Cayo Cuenca said.
Flamboyancy has its place, but for first-year cosmetic management student Maria Cayo Cuenca, it’s an inside joke with a friend and a fond memory of another.
The teddy bear plush quickly became an inside joke between Maria and her friend, whom she nicknamed ‘Teddy’ due to his resemblance to the bear.
“He used to hate it, that I used to call him that all the time, but now he’s gotten used to it,” she said.
The rabbit, however, is a far more personalized choice for Maria. Knowing her love for bunnies, her cousin bought it for her. It’s become a staple on her luxurious backpack ever since.
So what’s your style? Favour a sticker, button, plush or something totally out of the box?
New trends and eccentric ideas are spiriting at the seams. Take a look around you or even head to IGNITE’s Instagram for more thought-provoking ideas that may just seep their way onto your school gear.
Feature image by Jeremy Bishop via Unsplash.
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