Dean Brown's Audio Can won't get visually lost in that clutter on your desk, though you'll have trouble finding it if you leave it in the cupboard; its housing is the same metal can used to package everything from beans to sardines.

"The Audio Can is positioned as an mp3 companion that embodies simplicity, basic functionality and...could be appropriated for different contexts," writes Brown, who runs his own UK-based design consultancy. "We are proposing that it be used in the kitchen, parkland, fire station, coffee shop, bedroom or yoga class - anywhere where music is played as an ambient companion to the immediate activity in hand. In this context added features, and volume can be traded off for portability, simplicity and a generic design language."

The can can be used as a standalone item, or daisy-chained ad infinitum for something approximating surround sound. Read more about it here, or order one here.