Kate Spade – Vintage Sound Effect Telephones (2008)

Vintage telephone, sound samples, custom circuitry. 5" x 7" x 11".


Circuit design for in-store public interactive piece, commissioned by Kate Spade.


1960’s vintage British rotary telephones were hacked so that dialing different numbers plays sound effects. The sounds were digital samples stored on internal circuitry, triggered by the anachronistic analog rotary dialing motion. The samples included sounds of the ocean, bird calls, a lion’s roar, a bullfrog croaking, a train locomotive, and a person singing.


The first version was commisioned by Kate Spade for her Manhattan store. A second version with mutiple colors was built for J. Crew in their New York and Hawaii stores.

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