Wood You?

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How could you not? Now it may seem like these products would look most at home on the coffee table at Mark Brady's house but wood is becoming an increasingly fixed feature of modern design. These products below are taken from around the world, where wood is making its mark as the new ultra chic design textile of the 21st Century. The combination of such a basic material with the cutting edge of consumer technology is almost a perfect irony and the results are incredibly compelling. We love all of these designs but we simply must have Hulger's VOIP phone at the bottom.

JVC has these new wooden earbuds to release sometime 2009. Though it's most definitely not disclosed whether they'll be available in Australia our sources do reveal that they might cost a pretty penny. These wooden earbuds sum-up the trend we're noticing of a back-to-basics materials mentality that's really starting to characterise top-end consumer technology. The HP-FX500 earbuds use all types of new fangled technologies that JVC believe warrant the high price tag but we know people are just going to buy them because they look good.
 
To go with your new wooden earphones is this concept for an ACORN-shaped MP3 player. Real or fake, we can't tell. Cute as a chipmunk - you bet.
 
We didn't know Russians did anything but ex-KGB politicians and vodka but apparently they also like to make ultra high-end consumer goods out of wood. First it was a phone, now it's an MP3 player. The Gresso Symphonia, is encased in African Blackwood (the same wood used in concert-quality clarinets and oboes) and are encased with your choice of white or rose 18-carat gold.
This keyboard was commissioned by friends of designer DATAMANCER in New Jersey, USA. The artist describes his friends as avid Scrabble players and reveals that “most of the keys are made from real Scrabble tiles that were all hand-beveled”. After posting these images on the website, Datamancer has since had a flurry of requests for more “scrabble” keyboards and, pending legal issues, Datamancer looks set to fill these orders.
 
We're just flabbergasted with the patience and beauty of this wooden Vespa. Designed and built by Italian, Carlos Alberto, this wooden Vespa has the ability to make even the poonciest scooter-rider look like they care about aesthetics. We believe this vehicle would be best served somewhere along the Amalfi coast, doing about 40 KM/H holding up traffic with too impossibly attractive Italians on board, probably wearing Armani. 
 

We stumbled upon design firm Hulger, in one of those happy internet surfing accidents. When looking for lomo cameras, we discovered alternate to Holga, the mysterious design firm Hulger (we can't for the life of us work out where they're based) which specialise in making mobile phone adaptors from oldschool and out-dated phone designs. Apart from being the definition of minimalist chic, the phone to the right is Hulger's take on the VOIP (Voice Over Internet Phone). So while you're skyping with loved ones on the other side of the world you can see how green with envy they are at your beautiful phone... Did we just say that? Yes.

All of Hulger's designs are absolutely must haves. Please go and buy something from them now!