Last month we previewed the imminent arrival of Aalto University’s Nokia Design Archive. Today the site opens to the public, with 700 curated entries and 20,000 items in a repository you can browse through via an interface that links the various strands of company history, conceptual design and presentations together.
‘What we had at the time were phones with black and white screens that could take calls and send a text message. At the time, we were asking: could the mobile phone be something more? What are our wildest dreams for what a phone could do?,’ remembers Professor Anna Valtonen, lead researcher on the Design Archive and a former designer at Nokia.
We’ve sifted through a few of our favourites from the dawn of the mobile multimedia age.
Nokia 252 in different colours, 1999
Hand drawn sketches, Blitz workshop, 1998
HumanForm Concept displays, date unknown
Nokia Monolith: 'Black handmade model of a communicator with stickers representing keyboard and UI design on the screen'
Handmade concept model, 1999
Responder phone sketch, 1994-1995
Nokia L'Amour Collection Launch, 2005
The powerhouse Nokia N95, 2007
The Nokia Design Archive can be found at Aalto.fi
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Isabel + Helen pull together to turn ideas into reality for the Wallpaper* Design Awards issue coverStep behind the scenes of the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2025 cover. Designed by Isabel + Helen, it is a welcome reminder that we still have magic in our own minds and hands
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Gucci turns its windows into an endless library of books, artefacts and rare treasuresFeaturing a collaboration with artist Luca Pignatelli, ‘Endless Narratives’ unfolds in Gucci store windows worldwide – a reflection of creative director Sabato de Sarno’s broad cultural interests
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Wallpaper* Design Awards 2025: Formafantasma revisits the masculine codes of modernist designFormafantasma wins a Wallpaper* Design Award 2025, for its Milan exhibition ‘La Casa Dentro’, which took to task the inherent masculinity and conservatism at the heart of modernism
