Engadget picked up on new phone concept designs by Japanese brand AU, but didn’t mention that one seems to bear the mark of Marc…
Very groovy and appealing ipod/dog-tag aesthetic, begging to display itself on a lanyard.
Perhaps reporting the death of the candy-bar form factor is premature? Instead perhaps it will flip to being a fashion statement – standing out from the crowd of clamshells…
Petafloptimism 
Sweet phone! Wow.
I really love the Naoto Fukasaw ones (the very angular ones with tile like buttons right up to the edge). I’ve never really been convinced of the value of upgrading my phone, an old nokia brick style thing, but if there were ever production versions of these I’d be first in the queue.
That phone (the Naoto Fukusawa one) is actually available here in Japan. I have used it a little bit, but it’s not actually very easy to use because there is no space between the keys. This turns out to be very important if all you use your phone for is sending text messages, which is the case with me and everyone else I know. On top of that, I found the elongated candy-bar form factor to be a little bit fragile. You could feel the flexing and I worried it would break if you sat on it wrong.
None of those phones look particularly useable actually, which is beside the point of the AU Design Project. Marc’s looks to be the most useable out of them all.
I want! The colors sure beat my Sony Ericsson.
I defenitly want one of those.
travis
http://www.sit-stay-fetch.com