Add a touch of colour to your computer hardware

What is it about beige? Why is the go-getting computer industry so wedded to this most cheerless of liveries?

Granted, the Apple designers are offering us a collection of candy coloured iMacs, and the G3 looks splendidly reminiscent of a Bondi-blue jellyfish.

In a different market segment, Nokia and others offer a chance to stand out ever so slightly from the herd with customisable press on covers for handsets. But what are we to do if plastic covers, or Macs or their operating system are not to your taste?

The answer is: call in the decorators. An increasing number of artists and companies are now offering to customise stuff that has being crying out for ornament and a touch of individuality.

One such company, Arttek.co.uk, offers a service to transform just about anything, from computer mice to laptops, into a gleaming, lacquered objet d'art using the honed skills of Japanese lacquerware artists.

"We think hardware should be a visual feast, coolly tactile and reflect the owners personality just like desktop designs do," says lacquer artist Susumu Okawa. "So at Art-tek we enjoy turning the mundane into a highly personal work of art. Something emblematic." Art-tek's work is the logical extension of the success of the configure-it-yourself PC offers of Gateway and Dell and reflects the fact that many more PCs are becoming part of the furniture as PCs move into the home and should look just as good.

The company takes commissions to decorate handsets and hardware in any way its clients desire, charging from £90 for a simple lacquered mouse to hundreds more for a whole PC.

It is no accident that Art-tek uses Japanese lacquer techniques. Much of the decorated technology available takes its cue from Japan. A combined love of decorative arts and technology is very much alive there and several companies exist to bring boring computer boxes to life. Akira Sudo's Custom Paint Computers in Tokyo specialises in decorating Macs and PDAs. The hand-held devices it treats are particularly attractive - echoing the Japanese tradition of the lacquered box.

"We use a special paint used by Japanese auto-repair shop which makes it particularly tough and gives our work that shell-like metallic finish," says Sudo. For tarting up a Palm, for example, the company charges £95. A small price to pay, perhaps, for the ultimate in self expression. Rather more expensive, but perhaps more convertible if you happen to be a fashion victim, are the one-off mobile handset covers being auctioned by Nokia, who commissioned top international fashion designers to create phone covers in support of the Aids charity London Lighthouse.

The company that makes the Xpress covers for Nokia, X-art, is also in the market to produce designs for individuals or organisations looking for promotional gimmicks. X-art has even produced covers for football teams so that fans can co-ordinate themselves with logos and colours even down to their mobile phones.