14 DAY TRIAL // With Apple striving to meet Greenpeace standards in removing all toxic and non-recyclable materials from its products, the iPod maker could well use a guy like Josh Darrah on its team of designers. The Australian graphic designer going by the screen name of jozaeh on flickr has created an iPod mini case almost entirely out of wood, fastening it with metal plates and screws for a 100% green enclosure.
Darrah not only crafted his iPod mini case out of wood, but also made a cool matching charger dock, as shown in the third picture below. The designer went for screws because he allegedly plans on replacing the battery and, perhaps, the flash memory in the future. Not only is this the green way to go, but the metal parts add even more of an old-school look to the device.
“I was given a new iPod Mini for Christmas and I just couldn’t leave my trusty old Mini to sit unused somewhere,” he comments on flickr. “So I decided to finally try a wooden shell mod on him that I had wanted to do for a long time.”
“I wanted to not use any glue at all with the wooden shell, and fortunately i was able to secure it all together just using the brass screws,” Darrah says. “Especially because I'd like to be able to replace the ipod's battery in the future, and possibly add a higher capacity flash hard drive.” Josh does note he had to use thin, double-sided tape so he could put the wooden click-wheel into place.
“[...] Because i wanted to use this ipod everyday, i couldn't make the wooden shell too thin for durability's sake,” he adds, “so i knew it would be a much larger profile in comparison to the original ipod mini's shape, but i did some planning early on for the final shape and decided i wanted to keep the mini's rounded edges, with the back curves slightly deeper than the front. and yep! it feels really comfortable to hold after the final shaping,” his reply to one of the commenters on flickr reads.
Check out Josh’s entire gallery here, complete with original case comparison and cool close-ups.