Hasta La Gadget!

Search for an iPad case on Etsy and the choices run from leather to moleskine-lookalikes and felt. But Jonas Damon, a creative director at Frog Design, wanted something that could take the sleek, slab of glass that is the iPad and house it in a case that looks like it could have jumped out of the set of Mad Men.

So Damon transformed a fruit crate into a retro iPad charging dock. The dock takes the form of a 1970s or 1980s era television, complete with the cathode ray tube housing at the back, he says.

“I sought to enrich the iPad with something I have an emotional connection to– the home appliances of my upbringing,” says Damon on the Frog Design blog. “This lo-fidelity design language is very appealing in contrast to the gloss-black slick design trends that are currently the norm.”

Damon says the “lack of personality” of the iPad has helped people to create their own enclosures.

“In this sense, industrial design, or folk-industrial design, is thriving,” he says.

Check out more photos of the wooden iPad dock:

Encased in its wooden enclosure, the iPad looks like an old TV.

A side view of the wooden case. The back is designed to mimic the housing for the cathode ray tube.

The wooden iPad dock includes interesting detailing on the front.

Photos: Frog Design