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Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, will open the Nokia Design Archive on January 15, 2025. The online portal will contain approximately 20,000 items and 959 GB of digital material collected by Nokia from the mid-1990s to 2017. Users will be able to access a variety of materials, including advertisements, idea sketches, designer interviews, and presentations, for free.
The archive also includes never-before-seen prototypes, design processes, and consumer technology concepts. It covers iconic models like the Brick Phone 3310 and the Banana Phone 8110, as well as unique designs like the Mango Phone 7600. It also sheds light on how Nokia’s design teams and decision-makers contributed to the advancement of technology.
The project was completed through collaboration between designers, design historians, and organizational and management scholars. The research team explored the social and cultural context of design while curating a vast amount of data. Postdoctoral researcher Kaisu Savolla explained that Nokia was in a similar position to Samsung and Apple in the 1990s, emphasizing the importance of human interaction with technology.
Anna Valtonen, a senior research scientist, said the process of organizing the vast amount of unstructured data was difficult, but it showed the importance of organizational culture. She said more qualitative and empirical interpretation of the data was needed from a scientific perspective.
The Nokia Design Archive will be available for free worldwide access from January 15 via the Aalto University website, with further material available for viewing directly in the Aalto University Archives by appointment.
Every Tuesday morning, a designer with 16 years of experience curated Collect design trends.
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