Laptops: Making the image look orginal?

[Lord Ned]

Confusing title is confusing.

Anyways, I've got a friend who wants to Mod has Macbook Pro, for Speed racer. His plan is to put the Mach 5 logo on one side of the touchpad,

and a series of buttons to different things on the other. (CD Drive, etc)

So in my quest for being helpful, I'm like "Okay don't do this ****ty like, lets do it properly."

So I'm wondering is:
How to get the image (Of the mach 5, and probably more design on the top of the laptop) to blend in?

What kind of material would you use for the logos/pictures?

[halcyonforever]

First up what is the base color? Mac White? I would probably draw up the design in photoshop, and take the PSD file to a sign graphics printer and have it printed out on a cut-away vinyl pinstripe.

Some cost involved but should make a very clean design.

[Luke122]

Agreed. Get it professionally printed/cut if you can. Also, when submitting the image to them, make sure it's either a vector image, or the highest DPI you can possibly get.

For photos, 300dpi is recommended as minimum, but I would go for 600dpi. Makes for a huge file, but the difference in quality is VERY noticeable.

[halcyonforever]

thinking of the graphic you want, you will definately want to go with a vector image. Fantastically better quality for that style of design.

So use illustrator instead of Photoshop. Trace the design and submit that .ai file. Photoshop is better for photo-real markups.

[Lord Ned]

And a question about buttons. He wants to put some buttons in next to the touchpad. What would you use for the material there? My idea was to cut out the circle in the Macbook, and then use two really thin sheets of plexiglass, and put his new image in the center, printed on high quality. Then put sensitive switches underneath, so that when you pressed on the plexi it transfered through and hit the button.

There's gotta be a better way though.

There his layout.

This will go on the top, covering the apple logo/replacing it.

[halcyonforever]

capacitance switches with a metal plate... Only draw back is a casual touch with the wrist would trigger them, but it would be sweet looking...

The killer is going to be if there is space in the wrist rest to add this in... with a lot of laptops that is the battery location so there may not be any empty space to work with...

The next step after that will be wiring up the controls which can be accomplished a couple different ways... either replacing the exisiting control buttons, wiring a second circuit, or a software interface via hacked port...

[NightrainSrt4]

I like the design and the concept. I don't think the buttons would be too effective though. Then again modding isn't really about that. I would just go crazy, as that is where my wrist rests when I type on my Macbook.

[Lord Ned]

The killer is going to be if there is space in the wrist rest to add this in... with a lot of laptops that is the battery location so there may not be any empty space to work with...

Damn, totally forgot about that. Christ that throws a wrench in doesn't it?

Or it will be where his CD drive is. Neither option is good. :S

[halcyonforever]

That's one of the major reasons that hinder alot of in-depth laptop mods, there isn't much space to add stuff to. Great options for clean design changes, but pretty thin on free space.

[Lord Ned]

He says the battery is at the back, so we may be in luck. He'll crack it open later and see what's inside.