Nokia L'Amour fashion concepts 2005

Technology-based product design is a highly complex process and can be painstakingly slow. Designing technological products that seek to address a fashion market presents an immediate conundrum. How to ally a slow moving process with the increasingly quick changes in fashion trends and yet stay not only on-message, but ahead of the curve?

For Nokia's fashion range of phones, the L'Amour collection, certain 'vision statements' in fashion were considered; trends that were broader and underlay some of the fastest-turnover superficial trends. Nokia produced a visual strategy based on these 'under-trends', using image and scenario boards as their creative brief for Seymourpowell, who responded by putting technology to one side in their initial designs, creating functional objects in an abstract way for both a female and a male audience, which physically embodied those trends.

The 'L'Amour' project created the genetic material for the premium fashion products Nokia 7360, 7270 and 7380, now launched on the market worldwide.

"Seymourpowell have worked with Nokia since the early days of the mobile phone", commented Frank Nuovo, VP of Design at Nokia. "They work comfortably alongside Nokia Design teams, sometimes with strategic projects and research, sometimes just helping us cover the ground…it's been a long and fruitful relationship."

Covering the A-Z of mobile phones in the course of 'a long and fruitful relationship'
Seymourpowell started working with Nokia in 1992. In fact, the relationship originally started between Seymourpowell and a British company called Technophone, working on a product called the PC205, way back in the 'brick phone' days... When Technophone was bought out by Finnish technology company Nokia (whose own design team was initially very small), Seymourpowell were introduced to the new brand directors and began a long and very positive relationship with the company, through both their Finnish and their UK offices.

Seymourpowell's initial major undertaking for Nokia was a project called 'Ark', which took the form of a 10-year future scenario report, predicting many advances in the industry, including multi-media, 3G, building in music and cameras and the whole future of convergence, which we now take for granted. The project looked at social trends and emergent behaviour and considered how different markets and cultures had differing needs from technology, leading finally into a series of themes and ideas.

The relationship shifted in the late 90's, when the mobile phone business exploded and Frank Nuovo of America's Design Works was taken on board to direct Nokia's design team. Los Angeles became the new Nokia company design hub and Seymourpowell continued to work directly with the UK and Finnish teams, as before, both as a source of fresh ideas and as a spill-over facility when it was needed. The relationship continued to be strategic, with workshops between the two companies aimed at leapfrogging technological advances, seeking to pull rather than push technology according to people's emerging needs.