Gelaskins

Being the type of person that I am, I sometimes find myself at a crossroads. By that I mean, sometimes there comes along a product (the birth of consumerism) which has become so popular and so then has been revised so many times that it has reached perfection in the task it was originally made to accomplish, that I feel the need to obtain it for myself, even though I know that my owning said product will turn me into a braindead consumer as well as shepherd me into the flock of sheep currently large and still growing.

The most obvious example is the iPod. I love music as much as the next person, and was certainly finding it cumbersome enough to carry around a so-called "non-skip" clunky CD player and case of 24 CD's. So when I gave in to the iPod craze on November 9th, 2007 (Nano 3rd Gen in Black of course), I declared that I would find some way of making my iPod different from all the others in the world. And a lot of people bought that Nano, I can tell you. Who wouldn't want a cute little square iPod? It was very enticing.

I truly loved that iPod. My best friend gave me a rubber skin for Christmas of that year, after it had already slipped ever so many times out of my hand or pocket and scratched itself on the floor (bad iPod!), and I liked it but it was just plain blue and it didn't do a very good job after the small rip it sustained began to grow at an alarming rate.

And then, I found the answer. Where, you ask? What a silly question. Why, Urban Outfitters, of course! I was perusing the housewares and among the owl mugs and moustache flasks I came upon the most life changing item I had ever seen in all my years. It was a skin for the very iPod I owned, paper thin and plasticized. It boasted a brightly coloured background with snippits of paper and fabric in a collage-esque style. The back of the package laid claim to a scratch-free iPod, with style to boot! It was $14.95 CDN and I never looked back. Here is the sweet little skin.

I assume you can see the appeal. The skin did and does continue to protect the iPod from scratches (and possibly E. Coli. poisoning when I dropped it behind a very gross refrigerator once upon a time), well, as far as I can guess, because I haven't taken the skin off the device since I spent 30 minutes getting it exactly straight. When I was gifted with a new iPod Touch, I visited the website to find (to my delight) the countless designs available for a very wide range of devices. I ordered a skin for my new iPod and for my netbook.

The website also promotes artists through their designs made for the skins. The artist who designed this particular skin is named Colin Johnson and I never would have known about his work had it not been for gelaskins. All of the artists showcased on the website have amazing portfolios, so my artistic background was also satisfied.

I have noticed that these skins are of much better quality than those found at, say, a mall kiosk, and that most other skins do not provide a design for the track wheel and center button as these do. I have received countless compliments on my iPod and I find that it allows me to showcase my tastes in an exterior way as well as in the interior contents of the device, which is less accessible to others. Much as the Apple brand would have you believe that their products promote originality and the value of being unique, I find that these skins do a better job than the Apple advertisements in allowing me to express myself.

The website, found here, also allows you to use your own images as a skin for any of their products. I really recommend it if you dislike the bulk of rubber cases.