Nam Huynh and Mark Bohle of studio N&MS launch a series of joyful shopping bags

What can be more satisfying than seeing an illustration come to life, plastered decoratively on a garment, wall or object? Well, perhaps this latest release can beat it. Nam Huynh and partner Mark Bohle of studio N&MS have created a series of shopping bags, released as a campaign for shopping centre Dietz, which sells prints of household goods and groceries.

The bags were launched in support of new illustrations created by Shuhua Xiong from China, Hello Numi and Nando Vivas from Spain, Bimbo Kermit from Italy, Tallulah Fontaine from Canada and Andrea Chronopolous from Greece. Rest assured that if anyone were to take these bags out of their grocery shop, it's going to be a fun and joyful experience.

Nam and Mark both studied together at ABK Stuttgart, Germany, before graduating and gaining several years' experience as designers and creative directors. With a wealth of knowledge and skill under their belt, having worked for various clients and agencies, which span different countries and cultural backgrounds, the duo decided to join forces in 2021. Individually, their work has been awarded several international prizes, including the Prix Espoir from the Chaumont Graphic Design Biennal 2021. Now working under the guise of their own studio, we can only expect more to come in the (near) future.

A typical project for the studio tends to be based on something they feel passionately about. "We try to work consciously, reflecting on the quality of work and the state of mind," explains Nam. "We try to do work that satisfies us." Generally speaking, their focus point tends to navigate the development of something new – which is why everything they put their minds towards tends to end up fresh and original. They particularly enjoy developing a visual language when the project can allow them to dive into illustration, typography, found material or 3D elements.

In this project for Dietz, then, N&MS has worked up a viscerally playful collection of plastic shopping bags that are sure to bring a smile to anyone's face. Crafted using Cinema 4D and Photoshop, the minimalist backdrop (similar to your everyday bag) provides an apt canvas for the illustrations printed on it. "We hope people like what we do, but that's never our main target," says Mark. "When you try to create a new dish, you have to keep tasting it yourself to decide if it's good or not. Seeing it this way, it only seems natural that it is more important that we like what we create, not the audience."

"Besides that, we develop projects because we have a certain interest in finding out how our plans turn out. Imagining is easy. Reality always turns out very different. We try to skip this gap in between. That's fun."