Ah, those were the days. Remember when a mobile phone could fit in a jean pocket, the battery could last four days, and you could drop the device from a height, and then drive over it with a tank, and it would still run Snake perfectly?
That's not to say that iconic phones like the Nokia 3310 were merely utilitarian bricks either. They were considered sleek and modern-looking for the time – facets that helped change the way cell phones were seen and made them ubiquitous.
Nokia's failure to keep up with the emergence of the best camera phones from the likes of Apple and Samsung ultimately led to its decline, but its role in defining the design of mobile technology can't be overlooked, which is why it's so exciting to see plans for an online Nokia Design Archive.
The Helsinki-based research school Aalto University is launching a digital repository of 20,000 items from Nokia's glory days and beyond, from the mid-90s to 2017. We're told there will be 959GB of materials in total and that they'll include secret concepts and materials that that haven't been seen before, giving an insight into the company's design process, from ideation to prototyping.
The focus was initially going to be on the objects themselves, but researchers say they discovered that the story of Nokia was more about the people. As such it will also include interviews with designers.
Post-doctoral researcher Kaisu Savola, Aalto University said: “Technology doesn’t just shape us; we shape technology. When we started the project, the focus was on objects. As we began going through the material, we soon realized that it was about people.”
Highlights are sure to include the legendary Nokia 3310 and the Nokia 8810 banana phone immortalised by Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. But while the Nokia Design Archive will be a trip back in time, the promise of the inclusion of unreleased concepts also suggests that it could be a glimpse at a retro future that could have been. We know Nokia even explored a concept for virtual reality glasses long before recent developments in wearable tech like like Google's Gemini AI glasses, showing that it wasn't afraid to experiment, even if it didn't see what was coming with the advances in smartphone tech.
The Nokia Design Archive opens on 15 January. Visit Aalto University to learn more.
