Posted August 24, 2006
The gleaming, curvy, injection-molded aesthetic of Jonathan Ive—the Apple design god behind the iMac and the iPod—has ruled cutting-edge consumer-tech culture for so long I’m beginning to think that only an act of nature might supplant it. An act of nature like, say, the awesome Wooden Memory Sticks produced by Eindhoven (The Netherlands) design studio OOOMS and created, in large part, by stylish Dutch trees. They’re otherwise standard USB thumb drives (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) with one-of-a-kind casings that are handpicked from the woods surrounding Eindhoven and “manually selected on their natural beauty,” in the words of designer Guido Ooms. Perfect for the naturalist/Luddite who needs to transport files from office to home (or treehouse).
52 to 77 Euros (approximately $67 to $99), including shipping from Eindhoven, www.oooms.nl.