The iPad has finally been released. Although it hasn’t yet been released here in Canada, I went for a little drive into the US this weekend and stopped at the Apple store at Walden Galleria.

I must say: the iPad is a great looking device. It feels great in your hand and the display is absolutely amazing. As soon as I picked it up, I looked at the back and you have this large empty space, waiting to get customized. The backing is made of the same material as the original iPhone, anodized aluminum, which etches just amazingly well.

So, for the first 3 customers that come to our Toronto location to get theirs done, they can get it free.

We will publish the photos of the etched units so you know when we have done the 3 units. After that, the etching cost for the iPad will be $55.

So if you have an iPad, come get it laser etched for free and show your friends not only the new toy but how cool it looks with your very own artwork laser etched on it.

Several customers (college students mainly) came over to the studio in the last 6 months to laser etch their Pina Zangaro Machina aluminum portfolios with their own custom designs but we always had problems with the etching and actually had to turn away a few people.

The problem? Well, I guess the manufacturer wants to keep the portfolios look scratch-free for as long as possible, and to accomplish this they apply some type of polishing layer to the metal which prevented the laser from properly adhering to it. So when Seeba came by last week we had to tell her the same thing: we have tried it but the results were less than perfect. We suggested that if she wanted to sand down the cover with a fine grit sandpaper it should take care of the problems. She really wanted to get her portfolio done with a custom piece of artwork from her portfolio so she did sand it down and return to the studio today to get the etching done.

As you can see, the results are great! We decided to make the etching in black to stand out more and after the sand job, it actually looked really cool by getting a more industrial feel to it than the initial polished finish. Have a look at the finished product.

This project required some manufacturing and assemble that we weren’t too familiar with, but with the schematics and specifications from the Sportsnet creative department, the results were great. The awards look really cool and it was lot’s of fun working on these.

Have a look at the pics.

From the show: Lucas is sleeved out with Star Wars tattoos, making him look a bit like an enforcer in some kind of sci-fi Yakuza. Carrying around a decidedly factory default-looking laptop is not befitting a man who clearly holds customization near to his heart.

Very cool! This was a fun afternoon and the guys from Butterscotch were great to work with.

The bottle will be available in November 2009 but you can already pre-order yours at www.tkaro.com

From the manufacturer website:

The design was provided to us, which looked really cool, and we had to produce several cards, with variable media, i.e., different Username and Password on each card to allow the VIP guest to login to the Cartel website and try out the new features.

Other than variable media, the one side of the cards was to be etched with a ‘full bleed’ like you usually do when printing paper business cards, where the print goes all the way to the very edge of the document. With a laser, this is easier said than done, because you need to make your template very precise so you can etch more than one card at a time.  The last obstacle was the fact that some of the content in the card was extremely small to etch (comparable to printing in Arial 5pt) which is really small and etching on anodized aluminum looks like it ‘bleeds’ a little on the material.

We were able to get them etched, after a bit of testing, and they look really sweet! We are also a preferred partner with The Game Cartel so we really wanted to make these cards look as nice as possible.

There were a few different challenges in getting this done: the size of the velvet pieces was a problem. Fitting all that material inside the laser while keeping it flat was not easy. But Kerry being a designer, found a nice way to fold it and leave some excess hanging out the front of the laser. Second, we never etched velvet before, so we testing many different types of velvet and different settings in the laser. We found one that Kerry really liked and her client also liked the result. Once these issues were solved, we etched the real pieces, straight from England, UK.

Here are some pictures of the results. Nice, eh?

The etched turn out great on the back of the unit, which was customized with the owner’s name and a company logo. Also, we were asked to etch the leather sleeve for the Kindles, which also turned out great. All the units were etched with different names and were ready for delivery the next day. Check out the pics.

Today we etched a Dell m6400 latop, which to my surprise, did look really sharp. The laptop shell was made of plastic, which I’m always unsure of the resulting texture and most of all, resulting color of the laser etching. But the etching turned almost pure white, like all the aluminum laptops do. Check out the pictures below and in our Flick gallery on the right side.

The Game Cartel (http://www.thegamecartel.com/) will be launching soon. Be a part of video game history!

And another…