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Style

Wear your heart on your screen
By SHEREE-LEE OLSON
Saturday, February 5, 2005 - Page L7


With cellphones an essential part of every girl's wardrobe, it's no longer enough to have the coolest hardware. You need the right ring tone, the right case -- and now you need the right wallpaper too.

Yes, that tiny rectangle that lights up when you open your phone is the latest piece of real estate in the style biz.

"The same way it's the accessories that make an outfit in fashion, it's the accessories that make a phone," says Rebecca Parkinson, a 21-year-old design consultant with crazyfunbabe, a Winnipeg company that creates cheeky cellphone graphics for the teen-girl market.

Think of it as portable custom design: Instead of putting your message on a T-shirt, you can wear your heart on your screen. "I Luv Bad Boys" reads one design; "Love Me Tender" says another.


"Even a night out with the girls seems to be an occasion to change their wallpaper -- to match their shoes or handbags," says Jay Cordenberg, publicist with crazyfunbabe.

The company typically releases a dozen new images a month, along with seasonal collections such as the current Valentine's Day offerings. The latest trend, crazyfunbabe CEO Lorane Poersch says, is animated clips and videos.

It's the sexy, sassy images that sell the best, says Parkinson, who gets her ideas from teen focus groups and just hanging out. Typical are designs such as "Sex Bomb," which shows an old-fashioned bomb exploding, and "Valentine Vixen," with a vampy girl in stilettos.

The company tries to hit all the bases. For those who have soured on the whole romance thing, there's the succinct "Valentines Sux."

From $1.50 for wallpaper to $2.50 for animated graphics through:

http://www.telusmobility.com

http://www.rogers.com/graphics

http://www.fido.ca.