At some time or another most of us have given inanimate objects personality traits. It could be as simple as hitting a leg on a table and crying out that the table is malevolent or a complex as naming and talking to objects around us. It’s weird but not so strange.
Part of our relationship with technology entails dressing it up, decorating it perhaps in an attempt to make it more humane, more friendly – but sometimes simply as a way of standing out of the crowd. Big companies have not been slow to catch on. iPods can (could?) be engraved, Nike’s could be custom designed and Mobile telephones can be blinged.
To me this was a recent addition to the mass consumer market. The illusion of personalisation by buying add-ons. The ultimate symbol of this was the ability to switch covers which came with the early Nokia phones. But I was wrong was a part of an older personalisation trend. I realized this yesterday when I came across this telephone cover at the Technical Museum in Stockholm. It’s almost too good. Tacky deluxe!
Photo: Nokia was not the first… by Mathias Klang (CC by-nc)