David Gelernter has a book on (mostly? not sure if I remember correctly) industrial and software design, in which he brings up the bakelite telephone as an exam

David Gelernter has a book on (mostly? not sure if I remember correctly) industrial and software design, in which he brings up the bakelite telephone as an example of such an object. Weird shape - check, functional - check (the handset's size and placement matches the distance between the ears and the mouth). It became a literal icon of itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_302_telephone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_302_telephone