Mobile Phones

World-beating Industrial Design

The start of a new industry

I’ve been working on mobile phone designs since the mid 1990’s.

Initially design engineering for GSM handsets and accessories at Maxon Electronics.

Phones were huge and technologies were just developing, especially rendering software.

Design team of the year

I moved to research and design for Nokia in 1997. Some amazing times, with unusual form factors – a lot of them hit products in the market.

We were Red Dot design team of the year in 2003.

I designed and used IDEAS CAD software to create the 3d assets for handsets, accessories and packaging.

Products to market included 7600, 3650, 6260 and E60.

Future concepts

I’ve done a lot of concept creation over the years, then followed that concept through to production.

Sometimes the design proposal didn’t make it! A lot of concepts were ahead of their time.

New competition

I joined Samsung in 2007 as they started to dominate in the Android market.

I was working on various different segments. Luxury phones, basic phones, rugged phones, messaging phones, smartphones.

Process was always the same, concepting, 3d modelling, rendering.

Then presenting to HQ in Seoul and making models of the chosen concepts.

Post iPhone world

In 2007, the design of mobile phones changed completely after iPhone was launched.

Out went keyboards and in came big touchscreens and rectangular forms.

Connectivity and an enhanced internet experience led every UX decision.

This concept had a touchscreen which slide open in landscape mode, with a fully qwerty keyboard underneath and quick access hot keys.

Global and regional markets

These designs were for a Chinese client whilst I was working at ChauhanStudio in 2014.

Form remains every bit as important and is challenging to differentiate so requires an innovative mindset.

The product design role has greatly changed now to include the complete product offering of accessories, wearables and digital services.