It's Your Call With Customised Phone Covers.com

Some examples of covers for Nokia 3310 (left and right) and Nokia 8210 (centre) from Customised Phone Covers

It is clear from recent coverage of the cellphone industry that a cellphone is no longer seen as a utility product: useful, dependable, black or grey in colour. Cellphones are now fashion items, with new models appearing almost every week. The fortunes of cellphone manufacturers depend on how fashionable their range is at any given time. On many phones, the standard cover can be replaced with colourful alternatives. A British company has now taken this concept a step further, offering custom made phone covers. In fact, the enterprise has also taken what they do as their name: Customised Phone Covers.

CustomisedPhoneCovers.com enables you to create a unique back cover for cell phones by Nokia, Siemens, Motorola and other models. Some examples of the many phone models served are the Motorola v66 and T720, Siemens C45, Nokia 3210, 3310, 3360, 3390, 3410, 3510, 8210, and 8310. In addition, the area above the monitor on the front cover can also have a customized image inserted in many cases. The phone models listed above are only examples - there are 66 different types of phone catered for.

The process of designing your own cover is made easy by the templates which can be downloaded for each type of phone. This allows the customer to complete their design with the certainty that it will be the correct size for their particular model. The template file can be imported into image editing software such as Photoshop. The completed design is then submitted through the CustomisedPhoneCovers.com website. (The site is in English, but can be translated into Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portugese, Japanese or Korean using the Worldlingo.com translation facility.) Because the site is based in the UK, it uses the European English spelling of 'customised' with an 's' rather than a 'z'.

Examples of the template files which can be downloaded from the CustomisedPhoneCovers.com website to assist customers in creating cover designs: Left: Nokia 3310-3330 series; Right: Motorola T720.

However, the online facility is not the only means open to someone who has an image they would like to have put on a phone cover. You can send by post any image, photograph, transparencies, drawing, etc., along with your order and payment details. You can also send a .jpg or similar image file on a diskette/CD ROM, and they will place it on the relevant template for you. If you send an actual printed image or photograph, you should mark the section that you want used on your cellular phone cover.

Customers who might not have their own image might want to pick from a gallery of automotive themes provided by Koolart. These are cartoon images of many cars, motorcycles and trucks.

The technology used to make mobile phone covers has also enabled CustomisedPhoneCovers.com to offer other customized products. If you are tired of looking at a plain beige or black mouse every time you site at a computer, you can have your favourite artwork placed on a 3-button mouse, which has a universal scroll wheel and 38 functions. An optical version of this mouse is also available. A significant plus factor concerning customized mice (mouses?) is that they can be used with any type of computer anywhere in the world - they are not model-specific like mobile phone covers.

A customized computer mouse from Customised Phone Covers

Another one of Customised Phone Covers tricks is to put an image on a Denman hairbrush. These are available in either a large oval size or a straight version which can be carried easily in a bag. A further expansion is planned in the near future with the launch of customized cases for glasses.

The first concern for anyone who is buying a product with a customized image, especially over the internet, is the quality of the product. After all, anyone can put a sticker on a cellphone cover and call it custom-made. The technology used by Customised Phone Covers is very different. They use only the best materials that have been independently checked by specialist testing agencies. Images are printed on to a cover and extreme heat and pressure is then used to create a high quality, scratch resistant finish.

Customised Phone Covers manufactures covers, and also buys them direct from the phone suppliers such as Motorola, for whom they are an agent. They then create a "one off" design for an individual customer and print one cover or mouse. In fact, the relationship with Motorola works both ways, because they use covers supplied by Customised Phone Covers all over the World at promotions for the trade and general public.

The CustomisedPhoneCovers.com website includes a number of useful features that are of benefit to customers. Although Customised Phone Covers is based in the U.K., it provides prices in dollars and euros as well as pounds sterling. The euro and dollar prices are subject to change due to exchange rate fluctuations, so link is provided to a site called www.xe.com, where the customer can check current exchange rates and thus the expected price in their chosen currency. In addition to sterling, euros and dollars, credit card payments may also be made in Canadian dollars, Japanese Yen and Australian dollars. In fact, it is possible for the company to service any one of 127 currencies, if a request is made to list a currency outside the six mentioned.

The customer may choose from a range of payment options when making a purchase. In addition to online payment, a customer can also opt to telephone with their credit card details, or forward payment by ordinary post. In this case, the order will be processed when the payment has been received. Another option for customers of the Vodafone cellphone network is to use Vodaphone's M-Pay channel.

A site visitor who has made a purchase can turn a design into an e-card on the site and send it to a friend as a birthday greetings card, christmas e card, or greeting for any other occasion. Customised Phone Covers doesn't charge for this service, and offers the e-card free as a thank you for buying one of their unique cell phone covers.

Of course, it is not just the dedicated followers of fashion who can use customised mobile phones. Customised Phone Covers service can also be used by businesses who may wish to brand their staff cellphones, or offer cellphones as promotional gifts or competition prizes.

In many European countries, the number of mobile phones now exceed the number of people. It is apparent that, to many people, a new mobile is a lifestyle purchase. Customised Phone Covers allows someone to express themselves with their mobile phone before they even make a call.