Nokia
101 (1992)

The Nokia 101 (type: THX-6X) has fondly been described as the "model T Ford" of mobile phones. Although launched in 1992, it sold a staggering 4.5 million units in 1995 which accounted for 42% of Nokia's total sales volume. The device was masterminded by Pertti Korhonen. He assembled the most talented employees in a range of areas including design, product development, marketing and manufacturing. Nokia long time CEO and Chairman, Jorma Ollila described it as the phone that “established Nokia as a brand.” It was Nokia's first candy bar design mobile; so-called because of its resemblance to the shape of a chocolate bar. There was a particular focus on creating a mobile phone that was easy to use. The phone’s design was led by Frank Nuovo, who at the time was working for design consultancy Designworks. He had been working with Nokia since 1989 and went on to be employed by Nokia in 1995 to be its Chief Designer. There were numerous design elements that went on to become elements used on mobile phones for years to come. The design of the keypad provided visual clarity which was in contrast to most other phones of the time which had crowded and sometimes confusing keypad layouts. Interesting, it also featured a green button to answer a call and a red button to end it. The phone also had a back-lit keypad which was a novel approach that made the phone easier to use in the dark. Nokia promoted the 101 as a phone designed to slip comfortably and unobtrusively into your pocket. Its advertising claimed that the Nokia 101 was the world's most portable phone. In addition to the basic phone features, it offered an address book that could store up to 50 telephone numbers and associated names, single key speed dialling, call timers and both battery capacity and signal strength indicators.  Nokia also offered a ”private label version” of the phone that was be available to other device makers and resellers. A good examples is the Swatch TCE 123. A business centric variant of the Nokia 101, the Nokia 121, was also offered using a similar design. Another very important part of the story associated with the Nokia 101 and Nokia 121 was the influence the phones had over Nokia’s future naming conventions for it mobile phones. Prior to these devices, Nokia had been using names such as “Cityman”. According to designer Frank Nuovo, by using just numbers, Nokia was able to have “a more neutral and flexible identity and consumer association” as well as having a less gender specific naming architecture. It was also important for Nokia to distance itself from Cityman given its potential association with Sony’s “Walkman” brand. Frank Nuovo, who was a consultant to Nokia at the time, but went on to be the company’s chief designer, worked closely with Nokia colleagues Juha Pinomaa and Phil Brown assessing the options for naming an also colour options for the new products in the UK. Ultimately, the work on naming the Nokia 101 and 121 when on to shape Nokia’s naming conventions for the foreseeable future. Phones for use on analogue networks were named “in the hundreds" range (e.g. 101, 121, 232) and digital designs in the "thousands" range 1100, 2100, 2110 and beyond. The design ethos of the Nokia 101 and 121 was described by Frank Nuovo as using “human friendly shapes and forms” with the emphasized display being the "eye into the soul of the product". But the phones also had to be “human centric and pocket friendly” with elements such as softer corners to fit comfortably into the palm of one’s hand. Frank Nuovo regards the Nokia 101 and 121 as the beginning of “all things that were at the core of the design vision work” he led and delivered with the Nokia design team over the 15 to 20 years. He describes the philosophy of “great hardware being at the core of Nokia’s leadership” and this helped Nokia get the right blend of “human centric high style with the best selection and execution of high performance features”.