Packs take a long time to get right. Even as we begin prototyping products for our Spring 2012 line, we’re finalizing the specifications for the five backpacks in our Fall 2011 line.

Seeing as we had a wall full of pretty-complete-looking packs at January’s Outdoor Retailer trade show, you might wonder why we’re not done already.

Even on simple packs, there are lots of details to tweak in the weeks before production begins. Color, for example, is trickier than you might guess. One of our pack colorways is an orange and grey combination (two greys actually). While that’s only three colors to manage, the packs is made up of mare than a dozen different materials. There are two kinds of packcloths, a stretch fabric used for pockets, polyurethane tape, webbing (in a couple sizes), utility cord, buckles, zippers, zipper pulls, stitching, and a bunch of others that we won’t bore you with. Because each of those elements is made from different materials, from hard plastic to nylon webbing, it’s a real challenge to make sure that our orange color looks the same across each one.

And that’s just making it look good. The making-it-fit-right tweaks are even more complicated.