It’s the year 2011, and you know what’s really starting to take off in the world of music?  CDs.  Yes, CDs, the newest and shiniest addition to the music consumption market, are capable of holding up to 20 songs at once.  Now granted, you can’t erase the songs, or add new ones, or change the order, or see what the title is while it’s playing, and if you scratch it even a little it’ll skip or quit working forever, at which point you have literally no choice but to buy a new one because there’s no way to recover that music, but have you seriously even seen how shiny they are?

Time to get serious.  CDs are dead.  They don’t hold enough, they’re too fragile, they take up huge bookshelves of space, you can’t move between albums, you can’t make playlists on the fly, etc.  The only reason anyone buys them is to immediately rip onto their computer and never use again except to throw at the cat while drunk.  There is a reason that digital media sales have been rapidly catching up to physical, even surpassed them on some labels.  CDs have literally not a single advantage over digital music, and should be phased out entirely.

So what you need then, clearly, is an accessory that both pretends to be eco-friendly and showcases how behind the curve you are, since you still think displaying your music collection in jewel cases is cool.

Wait no longer.

Designer Diaz Adisastomo was apparently “shocked to see how many license plates were going to waste,” so he repurposed them into “stylish CD holders!”  That exclamation point is actually there, and I hate exclamation points, but regardless, NO ONE BUYS CDS ANYMORE.  And the people who do still buy (and display) CDs are so far from the cutting edge of green fashion that they will never buy that.

And the worst thing is that license plates are such an easy thing to repurpose.  They’re pre-cut rectangles of sheet metal.  A Google search for “repurposed license plate,” without even using the hipstertastic term “upcycle,” turns up the following on the first page.

1. Dustpans

Perfect.  Rustic, simple, and practical.

2. Belt Buckle

Even better, because you can make like twenty of them out of a single plate.

3. Stupid Bracelet

I don’t really like it, but some people like massive bracelets that don’t stay on.  Especially the kind of people that use words like “upcycle.”

4. Mailbox

I would actually buy that.  It’s a little trashy-looking, but still fits with the right kind of theme.

And that search took like thirty seconds.  My point is that it’s all well and good to spend time and money repurposing old stuff to serve a new purpose, but it still has to be useful.  And I’ve noticed that people who call themselves “designers” tend to overlook that.  See my “Design Concepts” tag for more.

And please try harder.