Design your own Kindle (and win it) with Engadget, Amazon, and Adafruit Industries!

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We’re doing a contest with Engadget!

Reading isn’t just about the text that you’re reading, it’s an intimately personal experience in every sense of the word — the way the book feels, the crease of the pages, the wear on the cover, it’s all totally unique to your copy at the time that you’re reading it. Put simply, it’s an experience no one else will ever have. Between three models, dozens of accessories, and countless e-books, no two Kindles are alike, either — but Engadget has partnered with Amazon and the DIY experts over at Adafruit Industries to hook up five extraordinarily lucky readers with truly unique reading devices. These guys are the laser etching experts — see one of the Kindles they’ve done here!

Here’s the deal: we’re asking you to think of a design that would look great on the Kindle’s brushed metal back — something that means a lot to you, something that’ll make passers-by drool with envy when you casually hold up your new toy while reading The Economist from the comfort of your train, plane, or bus seat. Draft up that design (seriously, make sure it’s awesome, because you’ll be facing some stiff competition) and send it to us. We’ll post some of our favorites and hand the reigns over to you — our dear readers — to select five finalists who will have their designs laser-etched into reality on the backs of their very own Kindles!

Check out the rules, post and more at Engadget, good luck!


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3 Comments

  1. I have an “old school” Kindle (version 1) and It’s great!
    However, it stays inside it’s cover unless I remove it to access the SD card. This almost never happens. I consider this while I’m trying to think of something that would look great on the back of a K2… and I fail.
    The only thing I can think of that would be useful, and a little cool from the geek angle, is a bunch of “hacks” and short-cuts… a sort of hard-copy help page etched into the back of the machine.
    Lacking any really good idea to enter in the contest, I will post my thought here and wait to see what people with creativity, skill, and talent come up with.
    Good luck everyone!
    phil (not “the” phil, just another one 🙂

  2. I thought a coat of arms would be super cool. I uploaded my final design, and can’t wait for the results!
    For the design I whent with a traditional looking coat of arms, made sure it had motif’s representative of my family, and then used my font I had made at yourfonts.com to make it look like it was actually signed/written on in my handwriting!
    I would be ecstatic to see it on the back of a real Kindle.
    In fact, does Adafruit do custom engraving on already purchased Kindles? I will have to go out and get one to be engraved if they do and I lose the contest 🙂 (Going to peruse the site and find out now!)

  3. I’m also excited about this contest. I’m a new mom and have found that my “To Read” list is really adding up since I am often shorthanded and unable to turn the pages on my books. I am also a freelance illustrator and designer… so this contest couldn’t be any better. Having MY design on a Kindle… how cool would that be? And you guys for offering it… beyond cool in my book (haha).
    Thanks so much! Now if I can just win…
    🙂

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