KDDI
Talby

The Talby was the third device in KDDI’s au design project to go into production. It was designed by Australian industrial designer, Marc Newson and manufactured by Tottori Sanyo Electric. Newson was excited to have the chance to design a mobile phone as he felt it gave him the opportunity to work on a product that was used by many consumers in a category that he considered to be “stale and boring” in terms of design. In an interview with Blueprint magazine at the time he commented: “when as a consumer I can’t go out and get something that I like, I want to do something about it.” He clearly had a high opinion of his design as he went on to say that “I would actually go out and pay money for this – as opposed to the other crap that’s out there. Telephones have followed in the footsteps of things like sneakers and cars – the vast majority of everything that is happening is just gross. It’s awful.” The name Talby came from a character in the Dark Star science fiction film, which was apparently one of Newson’s favourite films. During the design phase, it was originally intended for the Talby phone to have an aluminium body however when the phone went into production this was changed to plastic with aluminium-effect paint. The phone came in three versions which were differentiated by the colour of the keys - black, green and orange – which are apparently Newson’s signature colours. The user interface was developed in partnership with Silas Hickey. Newson’s friend, musician Nick Wood, provided the ringtones and start-up music. In conjunction with the launch of the phone, Nick Wood released a record titled ‘Free’  which featured four tracks including “Newson’s Theme”. The phone also has an oval-shaped strap hole on its upper left side. This could be used with a dedicated cloth neck strap which was provided with the phone or owners could use a strap of their own choice. Picture credit: Marc Newson Ltd.