Telephone Shaped Alarm Clock

It's not a real telephone - it just looks like one, get it?!

How many of you use your mobile phones as an alarm clock?

I bet a lot of you do…it just makes sense, if you’re traveling and don’t want to pack an alarm clock. (That is, if you’re not afraid of some of the health warnings about mobile phones out there. I know I wouldn’t want to sleep with my mobile phone positioned right next to my head.)

I don’t imagine many of us travel without our mobile phones. These days, you can even use most modern mobile phones while traveling abroad, so there’s certainly no reason to leave it at home while you’re on the road.

But this post isn’t about that kind of telephone alarm clock.

Instead, we’re talking here about old-fashioned telephone alarm clocks: the cheesy kind of alarm clocks that are simply in the shape of a telephone.

Why in the world would anyone want to purchase such an abomination?

I mean, these things look ridiculous, right? I guess the only reason someone would want one of these things is as a gag: some people apparently find it humorous to have an alarm clock that looks like something other than what it truly is.

Ok, so the makers of this telephone alarm clock apparently thought it’d be a witty idea to try to recreate the experience of getting a hotel wake up call.

Interesting idea. Why is it so lame, then?

Because it violates the number one rule of design: never disguise a product’s function by having it look like a decoy for something else.

To make my point, let me cite a couple of examples.

Here’s a short list of other Design Travesties, carefully selected to make my point about the Telephone-Shaped Alarm Clock:

Brick Textured Wallpaper: it's just wallpaper, made to look like a brick wall...though it doesn't fool anyone. Hideous? Yes.

Do you think these VW Camper Egg Cups are cute? Or do they instead make you cough up your breakfast, before it's even been swallowed?

Is the Baby Arms & Legs Coat Rack your idea of elegance? Or do you prefer instead having a home that does not look like Hannibal Lecter's?

If you have a product…what’s the matter with that product looking like what it actually is, instead of being some weird kind of gimmicky piece ‘o crap?!Or are we alone in this opinion?

If so, please feel free to wallpaper your mobile home in early American ‘faux brick’.