What windows does the Nokia Design Archive open?
‘The headquarters in Keilaniemi, Espoo, was being cleared out, and Microsoft wanted to get rid of everything,’ says Anna Valtonen, lead researcher of the Nokia Design Archive project and Vice-Chancellor of Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm.
The year was 2016. Microsoft had acquired Nokia’s mobile phone business a couple of years earlier. At the time, Valtonen was Dean of the School of Arts, Design and Architecture at Aalto University, when she unexpectedly received a call from a former Nokia colleague. She had just 24 hours to act – otherwise, the entire design department archive of Nokia’s mobile business, which Valtonen had helped establish during her time at Nokia, would be lost among other discarded materials, possibly ending up in a dumpster.
Before a van could even be started, legal teams had to be consulted, ensuring that the transfer posed no issues for either Aalto University or Microsoft. Emails and phone calls flew between Espoo and Seattle. Once all parties gave the green light, the van could finally head toward Keilaniemi, just next 91ÇàÇà²Ý’s Otaniemi campus.
Bringing order to chaos
Nearly a decade later, postdoctoral researcher Kaisu Savola points to neatly arranged folders in the basement of Aalto University in Otaniemi.
‘The archive looked as if designers’ desks had simply been swept into boxes. Everything was in disarray, an overwhelming number of boxes,’ Savola recalls.
The archive boxes remained untouched, just as they were when Valtonen rescued them years earlier. Inside were papers, USB drives, objects, photographs, sketches – a mountain of materials that gave no immediate indication of what was essential and what was not.
This marked the beginning of a massive multi-year effort. The core research team secured funding from the Academy of Finland and the KAUTE Foundation. Experts from various fields contributed. The first step was structuring the archive to make it accessible for research.
Savola worked alongside another researcher and an archival trainee to sort and catalog the materials. They categorised content by themes and developed methods to bring logical order to the chaos. The final archive consists of around 25,000 objects and 1 TB of digital files.
The research project took four years, with two and a half dedicated to building the archive. In September 2022, designer and doctoral researcher Michel Nader joined the team to create an interactive platform, making the materials accessible to a broader audience.
A resource for the humanities
From the outset, the research team agreed that the digital archive should be a curated version of the physical archive, making access easier. They selected 700 unique elements for digitisation, structured them into thematic categories and included video interviews of about 20 Nokia designers, together with transcripts.
The organised collection provides a unique glimpse behind the scenes of a technology company and even a look back at the evolution of our present reality. Nokia played a significant role in shaping the technological aesthetics and experiences we live with today.
The archive’s potential extends beyond designers and historians; it could interest business executives, marketers, sociologists, gender studies researchers, psychologists and fashion scholars – anyone from the humanities.
Given the vast range of perspectives, we asked Savola and Nader to highlight a few key themes that particularly fascinated them and offer rich potential for further research.
1. Behind technology, there’s always a human
From the beginning, Kaisu Savola was drawn to materials that revealed a human presence: hand-drawn sketches, physical models, and prototypes.
She was surprised by the sheer number of prototypes and material samples that had been part of the technology development process. When discussing artificial intelligence and cloud computing, the physical aspect of technology is often overlooked – but it hasn’t disappeared.
Physical objects, of course, cannot be included in a digital archive. To see them up close, one must visit Otaniemi. However, the digital archive contains photographs of these objects, along with something unique that the physical archive lacks: personal stories.
Michel Nader was determined to reach out to as many former Nokia designers as possible. He managed to track down around 500 of them and contact around 200, conducting short interviews and filming video clips, all of which are included in the digital archive, along with their CVs. The collection also features artwork by the designers and even photos from company retreats to Lapland.
According to Nader, other technology companies such as Philips and Microsoft have design archives, but their materials have been selectively curated to exclude confidential content. The Nokia archive, by contrast, includes a much broader range of materials, making it a rare and extensive qualitative resource.
‘It’s really cool that Finland has such an enormous qualitative dataset,’ Anna Valtonen says. ‘Could there be more like this here?’
She notes that while today’s discussions often focus on quantitative data, extensive qualitative materials like the Nokia Archive provide a deeper understanding of how different factors interconnect.
‘This material is valuable now, but just as much 50 years from now, when someone wants to analyse what the world was like,’ Valtonen says.
It also offers insights into the present: ‘During Nokia’s peak, the world was in the midst of major technological shifts. Now, with AI, we are experiencing another wave of change. This archive shows how previous transformations were navigated and solved.’
2. Business was built around the user
User-centric thinking was a core part of Nokia’s story, Savola says. User needs were continuously studied and anticipated, and product development responded rapidly to emerging signals.
‘In the early 1990s, mobile phones were clearly targeted at businessmen and drivers. They were large, clunky, and neutral in dark tones. Then Nokia popularised colourful phones with interchangeable covers, turning phones into accessories for a broader audience beyond business professionals,’ Savola explains.
However, even as bright-coloured models emerged, Nokia still offered gray, boxy phones. A wide product range was part of its strategy – something for everyone. The archival materials related to user research, however, contain highly stereotypical imagery, particularly regarding gender roles.
‘From the 1990s onward, you can see how Nokia envisioned people using phones for more than just calls and texts: gaming, fitness, self-tracking. They were keenly interested in consumers and continuously studied different target groups.’
Savola also found it fascinating that fashion is a recurring theme in the archive. Nokia saw technology as a form of personal expression, deliberately engaging with the fashion world and collaborating with major fashion houses.
3. Design had many roles
The Nokia archive helps designers reflect on their profession – how design expertise can be applied beyond product development.
At Nokia, designers weren’t just involved in product creation; they also engaged in creative concept work and bold envisioning of the future. ‘Design was used to spark discussions and create future scenarios,’ Savola says.
For example, Nokia’s 3G concept videos were remarkably accurate, Savola notes, showing a 1999 video where two colleagues have a video-call – one in London, the other in Shanghai – discussing which crab to order for dinner. At the time, such technology was utopian; today, it’s commonplace.
Some ideas, however, missed the mark. ‘The wildest concepts were about nanomaterials. Around 2007–2008, there was a belief that self-shaping materials would be the future, but that hasn’t materialised in daily life.’
4. Preserving knowledge is always incomplete
Working with the archive gave Savola a concrete understanding of how historical knowledge is preserved – what survives is ultimately random. Research relies on fragmented and incomplete materials.
‘The key is asking what past events mean in the present. Even if decisions are based on limited sources, making those interpretations is essential.’
The researchers hope that many people will study the archive from different perspectives, generating varied conclusions. The Nokia design archive offers a uniquely uncensored look into a major design company’s operations – its greatest successes and its vulnerabilities alike.
Text: Anna-Kaari Hakkarainen
Illustration: Nokia Design Archive
This article has been published in the (issuu.com), May 2025.
Mobile phones transformed the world
Nokia began its operations in the 19th century in the paper industry and gradually expanded into a multi-industry company. Over the decades, it produced car tires, rubber boots and electrical cables before shifting its focus to electronics and telecommunications in the 1980s.
In the 1990s, the company rose to become the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturer, with phones like the iconic Nokia 3310 gaining immense popularity.
Nokia had a significant impact on the Finnish economy: its global success generated export revenues and created thousands of jobs. At its peak, the company accounted for nearly four percent of Finland’s GDP.
In 2014, Nokia sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft and has since focused on network infrastructure and technology development.
Nokia Design Archive
Through never-before-seen sketches, photographs, videos and interviews spanning from the mid 90s to 2017, online visitors can access the inner-workings of Nokia Mobile Phones to learn how design ideas shaped our world.
Read more news
Doctoral thesis: Finland’s civil defence shelters protect nearly everyone – but hotter summers may test their limits
Built over decades, Finland’s civil defence shelter system covers almost the entire population and has cost the equivalent of three years of defence spending.
Rising sea could erase a significant portion of coastal habitats in Finland
More than a fifth of coastal meadows and sandy beaches may disappear by the turn of the century.
Näytös/Näyttely25 award-winning works on display in the Bio Rex lobby
Aalto University and Konstsamfundet are deepening their collaboration. As part of this, the award-winning works of Näytös/Näyttely25 will be showcased in Helsinki city centre at Bio Rex in the Lasipalatsi block.