A rectangular motorcyle; cutlery that sacrifices utility for aesthetics; a phone with holes for buttons; a phone that's all buttons. These are objects dreamed up by Branko Lukic, the ex-Ideo designer and principal of design firm Nonobject in his conceptual design book of the same name. We posted a capsule review of the book in our Best Innovation and Design Books of 2010 roundup, and Icon Magazine's William Wiles has an in-depth review up here.

Writes Wiles in his unflinching review:

Nonobject does play a valuable role in critical design, even if that role is somewhat oversold in the introductions. Industrial designers produce little in the way of "paper architecture." Unlike architects, who are regularly happy to put aside material or practical constraints and doodle away at megastructures and walking cities, moving professional theory forward as they do, industrial designers are in the vice of the cult of use....

...Nonobject is at its best - both funniest and cleverest - when it is at its most critical. One of its highlights is the CUiN5 mobile phone, every surface of which is covered in buttons. No matter which way up it is, it's the right way up. Of course there's no screen or anything else - the point is that there are limits to ease of use, it's not an evolutionary track that stretches forever into the distance....

Here's the CUiN5 phone in question, which looks even better in video than it does in stills. Practical joke, thought-provoker, the anti-touchscreen phone? You decide.

CUin5 from NONOBJECT on Vimeo.