Printful Bag and Backpack Options – Review

Introduction

Bags and backpacks looks to be a growing category for print on demand. I’ve seen more options coming to various POD vendor sites in the last 12-18 months, so they’re clearly seeing the demand. Most are variations on a few basic categories, but it’s nice to see multiple construction and printing options made available.

Printful has a nice range of options in the bags and backpacks category. They have good tools for the designer, quality construction, and reasonable fulfillment times.

The broad categories I’m looking at in this post are

• Tote Bags
• Backpacks
• Fanny Packs

They (and other POD suppliers) offer other bag types, such as duffels and laptop sleeves, but I haven’t tried those out yet as of this writing.

If you’re looking for other varieties (and to compare pricing), always check out other vendors such as Printify or Gooten.

https://youtu.be/_7cvQttxdgI

Classic Organic Cotton Tote – Black

This classic tote bag is the Large Eco Tote from Econscious. Model number EC8001.

It’s has turned out to be one of my favorite bags so far, despite its simplicity. Unfortunately, Printful seems to have had stocking issues for a while. So you’ll need to monitor your dashboard for out-of-stock notices if you use it in your shop.

This style is also available in an off-white or natural color if you would like to offer an organic cotton tote but can’t get the black version.

Content and Construction

The provided specifications are

• 100% certified organic cotton twill
• Fabric weight: 8 oz/square yard
• Size: 20″ x 14″ x 5″
• Volume: 6 US gallons (23 liters)
• 1″ x 25″ straps made of the same fabric as the bag
• Recommended care: Machine wash cold. Tumble dry low.

The provided measurements are accurate, but I found the bag shrank slightly after washing. For example, it’s now about 13.5″ high instead of 14″. Pretty common with a cotton twill fabric.

There’s no interior pockets or dividers, so it’s simply a soft bag with carrying straps.

The fabric is soft but sturdy with a fine twill weave. The color is a true black. Unfortunately, like your favorite black slacks and cat hair, it does tend to attract and show the lint LOL. Sorry about that in the photos!

The straps are a perfect length for throwing this bag over your shoulder while out running errands.

I do a lot of sewing, and, for a mass-produced item, I’m pleased with the construction. The inside seams are serged. The upper edge has a double-turned hem, and the straps are nicely top stitched and attached to the bag with a classic X-in-a-box pattern (can’t think of the proper name for the finish).

Care

It did wash and dry well. While I often line dry personal items, I know many people want to throw items like this in the dryer (especially with sanitation concerns). So I machine-washed on cold and put in the dryer with some kitchen towels on standard tumble dry. Other than the minor shrinkage noted earlier, it came through really well including the print.

Printing Requirements and Results

The base price comes with printing on one side but you can add a design on the back for an extra fee.

Similar to how t-shirts have historically been printed, you’re starting with a ready made product and applying a square or rectangular image to the surface. No other changes are made to the underlying item.

The print file must be

• PNG or JPEG format
• At least 150 DPI
• sRGB color profile
• 9.5″ x 9.5″ – at 150 DPI this translates to an image 1425 x 1425 pixels in size

Printful provides a template file in Adobe Photoshop format plus instructions in PDF, but you can use the provided specs to create a file in any other tool that will create a PNG or JPEG such as Canva. They also support creating designs right within their interface using text or items from their clipart and image libraries.

Since I’m testing a lot of products right now, I have been using a small group of design files – adapted as necessary to fit different items – so I can get an apples-to-apples comparison.

I think the two biggest factors in how the design came out are the black fabric and the twill texture. While even the small dots in the crenelations are visible, they’re slightly fuzzy. The colors are also slightly muted (compare to the same core image on the drawstring backpack below).

I’m fine with how the image turned out – it’s consistent with what I know about printing on textiles and so not unexpected. But those with other design goals should take into account how the results can change based on what you’re printing on.

Fanny Pack

So I’m old enough to remember when fanny packs were the craze and then became anathema for the fashion-aware. I guess now they’re back? They’re certainly practical in certain situations!

This is Printful’s All-Over Print Fanny Pack.

Content & Specs

The provided specifications are

• 100% polyester, water-resistant fabric
• Fabric weight: 9.91 oz/square yard
• Size (bag only): 6.5″H x 13″W x 2.75″D
• Two sizes
  • S/M: Total circumference 27.625″ – 37.75″
  • M/L: Total circumference 35.375″ – 52.375″
• Zipper closure with two-way closure and two pulls
• Open inside pocket
• 1.25″ wide adjustable waist strap with plastic adjuster and buckle
• Recommended care: Hand wash and tumble dry (low heat)

Construction

Unlike the tote bag above, the rest of the products I cover here – including the fanny pack – are produced using what’s called the “Cut & Sew” method. With this approach, you don’t start with a finished product.

Instead, your design files are used to print the fabric. Your item is then cut out and stitched together. The structure of the product is predetermined, but you have a lot of options with the design.

So this is a true made-on-demand product from the fabric up. That means your supplier has people cutting out and stitching together each order.

The construction of this fanny bag is decent. The external top stitching is neat, although the zipper is inserted slightly off (doesn’t affect the function, however). The stitching on the inside pocket is a bit sloppy – something I noticed but won’t show on the outside.

The bottom front is pleated to give more dimension to the bag, which is a nice detail.

The inside seams are finished with binding which is great for a neat appearance and improved wear.

The webbing and plastic hardware of the waist strap are what I would consider medium quality.

Overall, this waist pack will be just fine for errands around town or working out at the local park. But I wouldn’t recommend it for your EBC Trek!

Printing Requirements

One advantage – and challenge – of all over print items is the flexibility you have with the printed design. Depending on the product construction, you might need to create multiple files for different parts.

The fanny pack is the most complete all-over design I’ve tried so far. You need to supply files for the

• Front
• Back
• Top
• Inside Pocket
• Inside Label (it’s printed directly on the Inside Pocket)

All files must meet the following requirements (exact file size will be specific to the part):

• PNG or JPEG format
• At least 150 DPI
• sRGB color profile
• Full-bleed images. If your design only covers part of the print area, make sure to submit as a PNG with transparent background.
• Images kept within the “safe print” area. Because of the printing and construction methods, they need some wiggle room around the edges. So make sure any key design elements are within the marked border.

They do warn that exact placement can’t be guaranteed, so don’t expect you can create seamless patterns across the seam lines. But you can still have a lot of fun with all of the parts.

I chose to keep it fairly simple since my goal was more about testing the product style and construction as well as the design reproduction. I used a repeating pattern I’ve applied on other products, scaling it down for the smaller bag size.

Printing Results

The details in the pattern came out well, which surprised me a bit. The fabric has an even weave, but the gauge of the threads is fairly thick giving a slight texture to the finish.

It’s the color that is interesting. I expected a bit brighter result, in part because I know the fabric itself is bright white, but I find the colors somewhat muted. In fact, the overall effect is almost as if there’s a veil over the entire design.

Data point: the background color on this and the next two items is exactly the same within Photoshop. It leans toward periwinkle in the fanny pack, but it’s much more of a rich sky blue in the next two products.

I did mess up on the Inside Label placement – I mismeasured so it wound up covering part of the design on the pocket. Lesson for next time!

All-Over Print Tote

This is another tote from Printful. Like the canvas one, it’s just a bag with handles that are good length for wearing over your shoulder. No interior pockets or dividers.

Content and Construction

The shape is more of a rectangle, at least visually.

The specs are

• 100% spun polyester fabric
• Fabric weight: 9.44 oz/square yard
• Size: 14″H x 15″W (note: their site says 15″ x 15″, but I’m providing the actual measurements of my sample)
• The bottom corners are pleated inward to create a bottom surface about 3″ deep
• Volume: 2.6 US gallons (10 liters)
• Weight limit: 44 pounds (20 kilograms)
• Handles made of 100% cotton bull denim. 28.5″ long (attachment point to attachment point) and 1″ wide.
• Recommended care: Machine wash cold. Line dry in shade.

The fabric feels really sturdy. The outside is a very tight plain weave. As far as I can tell, the spun poly lining is actually part of the construction fabric: it seems to be bonded to the outer layer.

I’m not a huge fan of this particular textile, but I could see it being really good for things like beach totes or picnics. I think it would be sand and water resistant. It’s rather thick – sort of like a heavy upholstery textile – with a lot of body.

You can choose from three handle colors: black, red, or yellow. I think I chose the yellow sort of randomly and found it’s a very bright, slightly mustardy shade.

As you can probably tell from the product name, this is another cut & sew design. The construction is pretty simple: two side seams, a top hem, and the handles. The top hem is double-turned to hide the raw edge, and all of the stitching is secure and neat. They matched the thread to the handles when attaching them.

Printing Requirements and Results

Since the construction of this bag is pretty simple, you only need one design file:

• PNG or JPEG format
• At least 150 DPI
• 17″ x 33″ – at 150 DPI this translates to an image 2550 x 4950 pixels in size
• sRGB color profile
• Full-bleed images. If your design only covers part of the print area, make sure to submit as a PNG with transparent background.
• Images kept within the “safe print” area. Because of the printing and construction methods, they need some wiggle room around the edges. So make sure any key design elements are within the marked border.

As with the fanny pack, they warn that they can’t guarantee exact matching at the seams, so design accordingly.

What’s interesting about designing for this bag (and the drawstring bag following) is that they cut the whole bag out of one piece of fabric. This means that if your design is directional (has a clear up and down), you have to flip it for one side. Plus, you can do a separate design just for the bottom. And Printful does try to make it clear what to put where in their template:

The print quality is excellent. Details in the design are crisp, and the colors are bright and clear. The colors turned out much closer to what I expected, although they appear slightly muted in these photos.

Drawstring Backpack Bag

The sample of this particular style is the one of the earliest all-over-print items I ever did. It was actually inspired by a trip I took to Disney World with some girlfriends for Mickey’s Not So Scary Hallowe’en Party a couple of years ago. We did Cinderella-themed costumes, and I was the Fairy Godmother.

I found the bag great for the purpose – an evening in a theme park – and I loved that I could do a design that worked so well with our costumes.

Content and Construction

A pretty standard style, this is a simple bag with a drawstring top. One end of each string is fastened into the bottom corner seam to form carrying straps so you can wear it as a backpack. There’s no real structure to the bag – the fabric is very soft, and there’s no internal pockets or dividers.

The specs for this Printful version are

• 100% spun polyester fabric.
• Fabric weight: 6.61 ounce/square yard
• Size: 15″W x 17″H (my sample matches their stated measurements)
• Weight limit: 33 pounds (15 kilograms)
• Drawstring closure. Their site says the cording is cotton, while on my sample it’s clearly a nylon of some kind. So they have either changed the specs since I made my purchase, or they had to substitute at the time mine was made.
• Recommended care: Machine wash cold. Tumble dry low heat.

The fabric is light and soft with a tight plain weave. It feels quite sturdy, and, at least in my experience, the main limit on what you can carry in the bag is the fact the cording can start to cut into your shoulders with a lot of weight.

As another cut & sew item, this backpack is made to order by the supplier. It’s basic construction: two side seams with a drawstring casing at the top edge for the cording. There’s a few stray threads from the inside seams, but otherwise the stitching is neat and secure.

The drawstring casing has a double-turned hem to hide the raw edge. All stitching is with black thread. The cording is black.

Printing Requirements and Results

The string backpack is very similar to the all-over tote in that you provide one file where you need to take into account whether or not your design is directional. Given the different style, there’s no defined bottom area as with the tote, although you could certainly play around with your design to have something wrapping around that bottom fold.

The file requirements are

• PNG or JPEG format
• At least 150 DPI
• 16″ x 38″ – at 150 DPI this translates to an image 2400 x 5700 pixels in size
• sRGB color profile
• Full-bleed images. If your design only covers part of the print area, make sure to submit as a PNG with transparent background.
• Images kept within the “safe print” area. Because of the printing and construction methods, they need some wiggle room around the edges. So make sure any key design elements are within the marked border.

The design details are very crisp and clear. You could use pretty fine details in your artwork and get good results.

While I didn’t use the exact same graphic file with this bag as I did with the fanny pack and the all-over tote, it’s a design from the same graphic set, and I matched the background color within Photoshop.

I would say out of these three examples, the drawstring backpack has the clearest and brightest color reproduction. The colors are actually more intense that I expected based on how they looked on-screen.

The background blue is definitely closer, however, as between the backpack and the tote as compared to the fanny pack.

The castle image also happens to be the same one I used on the black cotton tote. There’s clearly a big difference in how it reproduced on the cotton as compared to the polyester. Neither is really right or wrong – just what effect you’re looking for.

All-Over Print Classic Backpack

I’m pretty sure this backpack is the very first all-over cut & sew samples I ever got. It’s definitely the first repeating pattern I tried to make from scratch (be nice…I was experimenting lol). I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I could already see the potential with this printing and construction method.

Content and Construction

Printful simply calls this style the All-Over Print Backpack. They have a newer option that they call a minimalist backpack, but this one is a basic, classic design.

The specs are

• 100% polyester
• Fabric weight: 9.91 oz/square yard
• Size: 16.875″H x 12.25″W x 3.875″D (these measurements are in-line with my sample)
• Volume: 4 gallons (15 liters)
• Max weight: 44 pounds (20 kilograms)
• Outside front zippered pocket
• Top zipper with 2 sliders to access main interior section
• Padded interior pocket sized for up to a 15″ laptop
• Small zippered security pocket on the back
• Top carry handle and padded shoulder straps
• Lightly padded back panel
• Recommended care: Machine wash cold. Tumble dry medium. Note: I have not tried putting this through the wash yet, but I probably should!

The construction is solid. The interior seams are finished with binding for neatness and better wear. The front outside pocket has a nice detail where the bottom corners are pleated for shaping and better use of space. I would consider the zippers and shoulder strap hardware to be of medium quality.

It does not have a sternum strap or waist/hip strap. This is not a backpack for long-term hiking or schlepping your case books to law school. I would say this style is best suited for general, light duty use.

Printing Requirements and Results

Like the fanny pack, this backpack style requires multiple files for the various parts. While adding to the complexity, it opens up a lot of design opportunities. You’ll need four files (check the template for the size of each):

• Front
• Top panels (narrow strips that wrap around the top and about halfway down each side)
• Bottom panel (narrow strip that wraps around the bottom and about halfway up each side)
• Inside of front pocket

The general file requirements are the same as for the other all-over-print products we’ve looked at:

• PNG or JPEG format
• At least 150 DPI
• sRGB color profile
• Full-bleed images. If your design only covers part of the print area, make sure to submit as a PNG with transparent background.
• Images kept within the “safe print” area. Because of the printing and construction methods, they need some wiggle room around the edges. So make sure any key design elements are within the marked border.

As always, they warn that exact placement and matching across seams is not possible.

I found that the design reproduction is very crisp and clear. I found several flaws in my shapes (gaps in the lines and similar) that I hadn’t noticed on-screen!

The colors also turned out well – clear and well-saturated. I’ll have another post coming up where I use this pattern to compare color results on a variety of products which is very interesting.

Closing Thoughts

Bags and backpacks are definitely a category worth considering for your shop. I haven’t added any yet but probably will very soon – I’m just narrowing down my options.

In general, pay attention to the print file specifications provided by your vendor! I think Printful’s are the most detailed I’ve seen so far, but all of the vendors out there will give you the information you need to produce a good printed design.

As you have seen, different fabrics can give different results with the same file, especially in terms of color reproduction. That’s why I always recommend getting samples, especially when you’re adding a new product category to your line.