Flashback: Urban Camouflage

Back in February of 2005, when DIY still had periods in it, we came out with the first volume of MAKE. What struck me most working on the premiere issue was how awesomely renegade it was (and still is). This spread from the Urban Camouflage article is a thing of sly beauty. Author Todd Lappin shares his knowledge that “With the right accessories, your vehicle can always be on ‘official business’.” His clever how-to gets down to the nitty-gritty of adding a fleet number, hazard striping, and even concocting a company name:

The funniest part of all was that Todd wrote to us after the magazine hit the newsstands and said: “When I went out to my car this morning, there was a MAKE magazine subscription card tucked under the windshield. Telstar Logistics has been outed.” We ran his feedback and this picture in the Reader Input section of Volume 02.

Years later, I still enjoy that first volume, with all of it’s great projects like building your own magnetic stripe card reader, making a kite aerial photography rig, fashioning a $14 camera stabilizer, and putting together a 5-in-1 network cable.

Knowledge never goes out of style.

In the Maker Shed:

MAKE Volume 01

More: Watch Todd talk about the Urban Camouflage project in Episode 102 of Make: television!