'Nokia Design Archive' Launched by Finland's Aalto University

Helsinki, Finland’s renowned research school Aalto University has announced the launch of the Nokia Design Archive, a free online portal that maintains approximately 20,000 items and 959GB of digital files from Nokia during the mid-90s to 2017.

Starting on January 15, 2025 users will be able to access the advertising, ideation sketches, designer interviews and presentations., licensed from Microsoft Mobile before the brand’s recent ownership change. Along with never-before-seen prototypes, design processes, and consumer technology concepts, the archive will also reveal material associated with iconic models like the ‘brick phone’ and the ‘banana phone.’

Designers, historians, organization and management scholars and experts contributed their expertise to Aalto University’s research team, piecing together the unique position held by Nokia in the late-90s and early aughts, an era.

In a statement provided by Aalto University post-doctoral researcher, Kaisu Savola said “Nokia was in a similar position in the 90s as Samsung or Apple are today.” Many in the iPhone generation were too young to remember that the Finnish tech manufacturer was once at the forefront of the mobile revolution with its ambitious aesthetic and utopian technological ideals. These futuristic characteristics made the company’s devices popular among young millennials and Gen X’ers.

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