Twelve South

Celebrity stylist/style expert Robert Verdi has got extraordinary taste. The New York Times says of Verdi, “In the stye universe, where fashion, decorating and the media are usually on different planets, Verdi travels comfortably between them. He’s a Jack-of-All-Trades in a world where good taste and the instinct for the now can be the passport across boundaries.” He’s the go-to style guru for celebs from Eva Longoria to Kristin Wiig to Hugh Jackman, and has been a featured fashion expert on The Today Show, Regis & Kelly, and The View.

Verdi just published his Last Minute Mother’s Day Gift Guide, and we’re pleased that he’s selected our BookBook for MacBook Pro!

Here’s what Verdi says about BookBook, his selection for the Tech Savvy Mom:

“This gift is practical and a design must-have: a win-win for the tech-savvy mom.

Each piece is an original, just like her. Each BookBook is brought to life with hand craftsmanship and distressing, ensuring no two are exactly alike. BookBook is a vintage work of art built to protect modern day Macs and a beautiful addition to her coffee table. Plus, protecting her computer is a priority, and BookBook works far better than any floppy neoprene bag ever will.”

Read the whole Robert Verdi Mother’s Day Gift lineup here. Here’s what it looks like…

Three years after launching their first Mac exclusive product, Twelve South expands from the dining room table to the front cover of Kiplinger’s.

Charleston, SC, May 10, 2012 – The June 2012 issue of Kiplinger’s magazine is out, and the cover features Twelve South’s co-founder and CEO, Leigh Ann Green. The cover story, featuring Twelve South and three other companies with owners who were inspired to turn their passions into successful businesses, hits newsstands this month. Twelve South was launched by Leigh Ann Green and her husband Andrew Green in 2009, with a mission to design premium accessories exclusively for Apple computers.

Why just for Apple? “It was always our feeling that Apple users – like us – deserved thoughtfully designed accessories, worthy of the iconic products they accompany,” says Leigh Ann. “So we decided to devote Twelve South 100% to making Apple-only accessories.”

As the Kiplinger’s article “How to Create a $1 Million Business” points out, Leigh Ann and Andrew Green started the business in their home, using their children’s college funds and a second mortgage as seed money to fund the business. Their courage and passion for great design paid off when their first two product prototypes, cobbled together from scrap metal and a manila envelope, were sold to Apple retail store buyers on their first try. “It was a scary moment,” admits Leigh Ann Green. “We put it all on the line and it paid off for us.”

Today the company is 12 employees strong and sells its impressive roster of made-for-Mac products worldwide through TwelveSouth.com and Apple retail stores. The Charleston, South Carolina-based brand’s best-selling product to date is BookBook, a hardback leather case for MacBook, iPad and iPhone that looks like a vintage book.

The June 2012 issue of Kiplinger’s is on newsstands now. You can also find the article about Twelve South online at Kiplinger.com, and see the products that have made Twelve South a success story at www.twelvesouth.com.

Click here to read the original release.

HoverBar, HoverBar: How we love thee! If you’re like many people around the world who are enjoying the benefits of HoverBar up close and in person, you now can’t imagine being without that integral piece of hardware that makes your iPad, well, just so much more useful!

And now we’re happy to announce what we like to call “Awesome Use #4,352″ for HoverBar: Above your dentist’s chair! Special thanks to the dental practice of Costa +  Williams for sharing!

Need a little dental distraction? Send your own favorite dentist a link to our HoverBar — and his or her future patients will thank you!

Or, just buy them one here.

This is the kind of thing we like to wake up to. Designer, producer, video director and virtual NYC “it” girl Va$htie is a fan of Twelve South, and was kind enough to feature several of our products on her recent segment on VH1′s Big Morning Buzz, hosted by Carrie Keagan. She talked mainly about her love of BookBook — how family members pick hers up, thinking it’s a “photo album or something” only to discover it’s her laptop — but supporting the BookBook on display was our own Compass stand (in Candy Apple Red). Here’s how it looked. (VH1 doesn’t let us show the video, though.)

Get your own “Big Morning Buzz” on with BookBook — for iPhone, iPad, MacBook, or MacBook Air — and Compass now.

Every now and then, we get a great story from a satisfied customer that we just can’t wait to share.

Check this out:

“Guys, I thought you should know this:

1. Placed an order on Friday 4/13/2012 at 5:15PM Sydney (Australia) local time. Received the BassJump 2 here on Monday 0/16/2012. That is freaking unbelievable. The fastest delivery ever.

Working back to your South Carolina time (you are 14 hours behind), your staff acknowledged the order 4 hours later, i.e. as soon as they walked in the front door on Friday morning. I am amazed that DHL were so quick. Well done.

By the way, the gadget is great. It’s hooked to my 27″ iMac.

Best regards, Goran”

Get your own ships-freakishly-fast BassJump here. Or heck, just get anything we make — it all ships equally fast, for free in the USA, and for a great new flat rate to most other places. Including Australia.

While of course we do not know Gwyneth Paltrow personally, we like her work and  appreciate that she’s always reaching, always trying new things. Like embracing life in Nashville while making a movie, and getting to know our hands-down favorite neighborhood there — incidentally called Twelve South. Or starting GOOP. Her own personal discoveries in food, drink, travel, clothing, objects, inspiration…have been successfully turned into a highly readable and nicely-designed newsletter, website, and app.

So it was a special treat to open GP’s latest email, authored by connoisseur of all nice things Yale Breslin. It’s a fantastic gift guide for men of all ages, and right smack dab in the middle of it, for Guys in their 30s, is our BookBook for MacBook Air.

If you don’t already have your own BookBook for Air, iPad, iPhone, or MacBook Pro (or haven’t yet bought one for that amazing guy whose birthday is coming up, or whose fatherhood you wish to celebrate)….you’re going to want to run out and get one quickly. Because the thing about GOOP, while not-yet-quite-Oprah-large, is that her readers move fast, whether it’s a fresh find from the Paris pharmacie, or taking up her plan to kick the sugar habit, or getting that birds-eye-view-of-the-chef special table at that restaurant she mentioned. So here: Get your BookBook now.

The kind people over at MacTrast just got their hands on a Compass, and had a lot of very nice things to say about it (and us!).

In their words:

“Plain and simple: the Compass unfolds into a tripod-like easel for displaying, using, or viewing your iPad.

When taking the Compass from the included neoprene travel sleeve, it is merely an inch wide and seven inches tall.  The compact  size makes it easily portable in a backpack, handbag, or purse and once you use the Compass, you will want to take it everywhere.

The easel orientation easily accommodates the iPad in portrait or landscape and works well for FaceTime conversations, Keynote presentations, playing your favorite games, or showing off your recent vacation pictures.  If you will be using the Compass to type, lay the tripod frame back onto the rear leg and unfold the shortened tab found in the rear.  This laying position places the iPad at 15 degrees, which is excellent for typing, while still elevating the viewing angle.  The two options make the Compass an excellent way to having fun or get things done!”

In case you’re wondering if you actually need a stand, well…

“Would you like a fashionable way to show off a set of pictures for company? Use the easel mode and iPhoto to loop images when friends and family visit. …better yet, prop up your iPad and stream music to your stereo using AirPlay and let your Album art generate conversation.

Honestly, you didn’t know you needed a stand until you own one.  I love iPhone and iPad stands (I have several scattered across the house and in the office) and the Compass is at the top of a long list.”

So if you’re making a list of accessories you need for that New iPad (or really any iPad — Compass fits them all perfectly!), make sure you put Compass right there. At the top. Get yours today (ships free in the USA, and for a low flat rate in many of our favorite international destinations)! By the way, did we happen to mention Compass goes great with a BookBook?

Read the full article here at MacTrast.

Every now and then we get an email from a Twelve South user that we’ve just *got* to share. This one came in just last night — and while we’re very sorry to hear that a MacBook Pro was stolen, we’re happy to hear that our BookBook kept a new iPad safe and sound!

Here’s the email:

“I just thought I’d drop you a line concerning your iPad case. I purchased the new iPad and immediately ordered your “book book” case for it because I thought it looked cool. Yesterday I had to run into an office for a few minutes, so I left my laptop bag and my iPad in the back of my car. When I returned to my car I was horrified to see my window had been smashed and my laptop was no where to be found, but sitting right where I left it was my new iPad!! I read the marketing telling about how my new case would deter theft, but I thought that was just marketing BS. So, I guess I have you to thank that I still at least have my iPad to stay connected. It’s a good thing most thieves aren’t big readers. Thanks. — Finn J.     Sent from my iPad”

Get your own super-Lo-Jac-non-reading-thief-deterrent BookBook for iPad (or your laptop, for that matter, provided it’s a Mac) today. It’s ready to go for your new iPad, and ships free in the US — and for a low flat rate most everywhere else.

If you’ve followed Twelve South for a while, you’ve heard some of this before: We create Apple-centric products because *we* need them and will use them. And while it sounds pretty simple to do that, one magazine reporter got to the bottom of our process last year, Play-doh models and all.

Here’s more from a Charleston Magazine piece on the co-founders of Twelve South, Leigh Ann and Andrew Green:

“…just how do these designers turn their brainstorming brilliance into innovative tech accessories? Surprisingly enough, not on a computer. Their ideas come to fruition through good old-fashioned craftsmanship. For each viable concept, the Greens build a prototype by “any means necessary”—straws, Play Doh, chopsticks, you name it—to visualize the concept. (They fashioned an origami paper version of the Compass iPad stand using a cut-up manila envelope and a brad.)”

And about whether we are really only twelve people? Well, yes, really. When the article was written we were only eight:

“The model then gets passed around the eight-person office for feedback and tweaked as needed. “We react to touching, feeling, and seeing it in the space, something you can’t get on a CAD program,” says Andrew, who thinks their lack of formal design training has not held them back. “The final product has to be sleek, simplistic, and beautiful. If it isn’t beautiful, it’s not the solution that we want.” “

Read all about it in Charleston Magazine.

Sometimes you look at a product and think, “if one is so useful, wouldn’t two be even more useful? Or even three?” That was exactly the case with William Grose, the guy behind BigHugeNerd.com. A longtime fan of Twelve South products, he had a BackPack on his iMac, and kept thinking of things he wanted to add back there, so he figured, what the heck, I’ll use three BackPacks.

Here’s how the whole thing went down, in his words:

“For some of us, we’d like to be able to use a second, or third, or fourth (!) hard drive with our iMacs and not have them dangle around the desk, annoying us with their presence. Enter, then, Twelve South’s BackPack to the rescue!”

First, the installation phase:

“Putting the shelf together is a simple affair. Just slide the required insert (the instructions tell you which one you need) into the shelf, and attach them to the back of your iMac or Apple Display. You don’t need to hand-screw the simple bracket very tightly, as gravity will do the rest: Because Apple stands get wider as they go down, just the weight of the shelf will prevent it from sliding down. Thank you, gravity! There’s also no easy way to do damage to your aluminum stand, because the inserts are made of plastic and rest very gently on the aluminum. We likey!”

Then the exhibitionist phase:

“Yep, there are three hard drives behind the iMac in this picture, and you never knew! We are sneaky little nerd monkeys! Not a cable to be seen, not a hard-drive LED to be seen. Nothing. If your cables are a little messy back there, Twelve South does include a sweet little twisty-tie for your usage, but we found we didn’t need to use it. Still, nice touch, Twelve South!”

So if you’re thinking to yourself, “I wonder if I could use one of those BackPacks on my iMac,” that’s not the right question. The question isn’t whether you could use one…it’s just how many you could use. Get one, two, or three BackPacks for your clutter-free iMac setup today. Ships free in the USA…and we’re happy happy happy to tell you that we now offer International Flat Rate Shipping via DHL for most of the rest of the planet. (Which means whether you order one BackPack or 10, the shipping price is one flat fee.)

You can enjoy the full review on BigHugeNerd here.