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And you thought Paste's list-of-the-day tradition would take years to spiral into subjects this desperately esoteric. Turns out I'm just using today's installment to pimp one of my favorite recent discoveries: gelaskins.com.
It's a simple concept: the art-loving folks running this website sell you a "sticky"—as in, grips your laptop lid without leaving gooey adhesive residue—sheet displaying beautiful modern artwork that protects, personalizes and sexy-fies your laptop's otherwise drab lid. Also, per this entry's title, if you're an Apple fan but feel slightly self-conscious about that glowing, radioactive fruit trumpeting your superior taste in laptop computing to the whole bloody universe, Gelaskins is a godsend. An individual skin costs about $30, which is exceptionally cheap as far as godsends go.
The website even provides bios for all of the artists so that you know whose work you've commissioned for your personal touring exhibition. Surfing the Gelaskins website is like driving your laptop buddy down to the tattoo parlor and helping him pick out the perfect design for his strangely rectangular torso. All anthropomorphizing aside, here are my five favorite Gelaskin designs and a brief note on what I like best about each one.
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5. Audrey Kawasaki - Odaijini
The mood of this painting is so blissfully serene that it gives my soul a little massage every time I look at it. The stars flickering above. The sleepy eyelids. The gentle breeze kicking up the girl's hair. The weird flowers bending lazily around her. It's like a prebuscent Eve in the Garden of Eden, naked, unashamed and bored out of her mind. (Actually, the glowing, bitten apple on your laptop assumes a weird biblical connotation when you think about the painting in that context.)
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Heather Greene - Moon Hangs Fire
James Yuill - This Sweet Love (Earth…
Orenda Fink - That Certain-Something Spring
Colin Hay - Down Under
Fun. - All The Pretty Girls
Pete Yorn - Last Summer
Don't these just make your laptop look MORE ostentatious?
Technically, yes they do, in the same way that wearing a t-shirt with a design or pattern on it is more ostentatious than wearing a plain white undershirt. If something is attractive, it will always draw attention to itself. The fundamental difference for me is the desire to wear a t-shirt with an inspiring, fresh artistic design as opposed to wearing one with a baldly promotional, glow-in-the-dark Tommy Hilfiger logo embroidered across the chest.
I like the idea of owning the image you carry around everywhere. I just bought an iPhone cover from www.infectious.com - really cool!
SkinWeaver lets you choose whether to flaunt that logo or hide it.. choose from 100s of designs and 4 laptop skin types: Solid, Translucent, Transparent or Premium!