On his way to last month’s MADE bike show in Portland, OR, following a weekend in Fairfax, CA, for our premier of the Camera Corner documentary, Josh spent an afternoon with long-time friends of the site – artist Chris McNally and designer Jessica Chan of Tunitas Creative – and documented their collaboration on this month’s Group Ride giveaway item.
Below, get to know the San Francisco-based artist/designers and take a detailed look at making one-of-a-kind Day Totes up for grabs this month for Group Ride subscribers, as well as $150 gift cards from our friends at Ripton.
Art in the City
Over the past few years, I’ve enjoyed visiting the studios of artist Chris McNally and designer Jess Chan of Tunitas Creative. Located in the heart of San Francisco, their spaces offer a reprieve from the bustling city. After our Camera Corner film premiere in Fairfax last month, I spent a day with the pair before heading up to Portland, OR for the MADE Show.
As a special twist to our standard builder/maker profiles, we’re doing a giveaway with our friends at Ripton for folks who have signed up for our Group Ride membership. Chris and Jess worked together to create one-of-a-kind Tunitas Day Totes with some of Chris’s classic Bay Area-inspired screen prints. But before we look at these rad bags up for grabs this month, let’s get to know Chris and Jess.
San Francisco has become a special place for me in recent years. I spent quite a bit of time there, and in Marin County to the north, researching and filming our recently launched documentary about photographer Wende Cragg. Flying into SFO or OAK airports, I’d pass through the city, stopping to visit with friends and document various aspects of the vibrant cycling culture.
One such rendezvous included Chris and I dreaming up his illustrative role in the Camera Corner film (no spoilers!) and painting the promotional movie poster for the project.
While it’s never easy to forge a path as a professional artist or small-scale maker, the pair, in addition to many of their local peers, work hard to exist in a cost-prohibitive region that offers so much in the way of culture, recreation, community, and beauty.
Chris and Jess embrace the enchanting yet elusive Bay Area lifestyle. And they attend lots of the West Coast cycling events I’ve been to over the years. It’s always great bumping into them – whether at Sea Otter Classic or the opening of a new trail system – as each time comes with one of Chris’s famous community sketching sessions.
Tunitas Creative
Tunitas Creek Road is a famous road ride and hill climb among Bay Area cyclists. Known for its secluded location southeast of Half Moon Bay among towering Redwoods, it links Highway 1 with other popular routes. Growing up near Tunitas, Jessica Chan developed an affinity for the name, and its association with cycling, and used the appellation for her sewn goods brand. Later, she discovered that Tunitas is also the Spanish name for the fruit of Nopal, or prickly pear cactus. And who doesn’t love cacti?!
Tunitas was originally a bike bag brand. Jess made all sorts of cycling luggage, from basket totes to stem bags. She got into designing soft goods in a roundabout way after going to school to study industrial design. At university, she took a fashion class, not really for a love of fancy clothing but to learn how to use the school’s production-quality sewing machines.
Making things became her calling, and bags were a logical fit; they combined her passion for cycling with a more straightforward product to design than items like apparel or furniture. Bikes and cycling are an essential part of Jess’ lifestyle in San Fransisco, so she’s acutely aware of the kinds of items to be transported for work and play. And her creations transcend bicycles. Just look at her basket totes or sling bags, and you’ll notice that they function well on and off the bike.
Formerly called Tunitas Caryall, Jess rebranded last year as Tunitas Creative to take a step back and focus on the craft she is passionate about rather than just what she felt people wanted of her. If you follow the current bike bag market, there is a bit of market saturation happening now. And that’s a good thing, as there are nearly endless options and iterations of classic designs to accommodate various people and bikes. Accordingly, starting a brand from scratch and becoming competitive in such a climate is an uphill battle.
There was a lot Jess wanted to do that didn’t fit in the “bike bag maker” box she had defined for herself early on. Now, with Tunitas Creative, she can expand into other types of soft goods. But don’t worry, her bike bags aren’t going away – they just might only be available as limited runs or custom orders.
She’s already launched some products under the new banner, including a bottle sling, cross-body bag, camera strap, and uber-rad sling bag I wrote about in my musette roundup. Up next, it sounds like we might be seeing Tunitas apparel or even a full-blown backpack. So follow along on Instagram and the web for future product updates.
Chris McNally
I don’t recall the first time I encountered Chris McNally’s artwork. He’s been arting in and around the cycling world for as long as I can remember. But his first project to resonate with me was probably one with Ibis during the early days of Ramble Ride. Nearly ten years ago, while living in Fort Collins, I embarked on the first “official” Ramble Ride to Steamboat Springs. The three-day experience made quite an impact on me, and reliving the vibes through Chris’s illustrations was super fun.
Chris is always sketching. He’s one of those 10k-hour types Malcolm Gladwell wrote about who has been honing his craft since childhood. While this is my subjective take, he’s turned his line drawing and watercolor style into an easily recognizable brand. I realize branding isn’t what every artist is good at or wants to focus on, rather it’s a necessary part of retaining commercial work.
His passion for bikes dates back as far as his enthusiasm for drawing, but the two interests didn’t coalesce right away. After attending art school in San Francisco, Chris moved to New York and did illustration graphics for apparel companies. Before long, he realized he wasn’t following the right trajectory and moved back to California, where he slowly gained momentum in the cycling industry.
While some of his early work dates back almost twenty years, it’s still uniquely McNally. Chris worked on some low-fi productions in those early days, often print media in zine format. Back when Puma was trying to get into the bike scene, Chris illustrated this guide to fixed-gears, which was also a collaboration with Vice Magazine.
More recently, Chris took on longer-term projects with brands like Ibis and Blackburn. Even when drawing contemporary products, his art transcends trends with nostalgic imagery and imbues a lasting impact. This is why, I suppose, it worked so well as informational product ephemera.
One really cool example is the Ibis bike user guide. Inspired by vintage Porsche manuals, the illustrated Ibis booklets were meant to be kept around (and hopefully read) by their owner rather than a boring monochromatic document tossed in the rubbish bin. Then there was the Blackburn Roll With It film and companion book. Chris made all of the illustrations, again adding an additional layer to an already fun project. Maps often pop up in the McNally portfolio, including those for Better Place Forest and trail guides for the new network at Whiskey Run we documented earlier this year.
Chris and Jess have collaborated on some fun projects over the years. While working for Bay Area brand Rickshaw Bags, Jess designed the original Ornot handlebar bag and a little zippered tool bag that featured Chris’s artwork. This project formed the foundation for Ornot’s current handlebar bag lineup as well as Chris’s other illustrations for the apparel brand.
To avoid painting him into too much of a cycling corner, McNally also enjoys surfing and Vanagan ownership – two decidedly Californian pursuits that also make great subjects for illustration. The stop-motion above is an early example of his foray into bringing 2D art to life through animation. He didn’t learn this in school; instead, it came about ten years ago as a side project with his then-studio mate and developed more as video grew in popularity.
Chris admits that even today, his animation work is more clunky than that of trained professionals, but his watercolor style has a unique vibe that sets him apart. This is why we pulled him into the Camera Corner project. You can see a glimpse of what I mean in the movie trailer before the full release later this fall.
McNally X Tunitas Day Tote Collaboration
Chris and Jess went above and beyond to team up on a few very special tote bags. This month, we will give these to some lucky Group Ride subscribers, along with $150 gift cards from Ripton! The Day Tote is a mainstay Tunitas product with a utilitarian design and clever touches like a clip interior enclosure and optional shoulder strap attachment.
Typically made with a natural-colored canvas upper and EcoPack bottom, the canvas on these bags was custom printed using water-based inks, hand registering on the fly, and layering prints in multiple colors. Once dry, the printed fabric was splattered with fiber-reactive dye. The screens used in the design are all from various locations around San Francisco. Originally, Chris made them for the screen prints/watercolors for sale on his website.
Day Tote Specs and Features
-Dimensions: 15”w (bottom) x 6”d x 13”h
-Volume: 19L
-Weight: 310g
-Mini carabiner clip closure-Interior zipper pocket
-No two totes are alike with their dyed exterior fabric.
-Fully lined interior
-D-rings for shoulder strap attachment (shoulder strap sold separately).
We’d like to extend our gratitude to Jess, Chris, and Ripton for making this project happen!
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