Steampunk phone mods from Croatia: Andrew Ryan just called, Rapture wants its mobiles back

If your custom Android skin and typewriter keyboard just isn’t cutting it for you, then you might need to go properly retro and pick up one of these.

This series of heavily-modded steampunk phones is the work of Croatian artist Ivan Mavrovic and they’re fantastic.

Looking alternately like in-game items from the BioShock, props from the Nautilus in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and something that Bilbo Baggins’ descendants might use (if Middle Earth ever got round to putting masts up in the Shire), these are old phones that’ve been heavily customised with leather, brass, old gears and bolts and other discarded junk; pieces of an old VHS player makes up this heavily customised Nokia above.

If only all phone designs these days could be a little braver, a little less uniform, a little less, me-too. There’s more examples of Ivan Mavrovic’s work on his blog; wristwatches, USB sticks and a ‘metapen’ that takes the concept of the humble spork and runs wild.

Source: Mental Design via Oddity Central, YouBentMyWookie