The best designers of the red dot award: product design 2006: Pekka Majanen and Todd Wood

Pekka Majanen and Todd Wood belong to the best designers of this year's red dot award: product design. They received the award “red dot: best of the best” for the distinguished design of the Nokia 8800 mobile phone. Pekka Majanen and Todd Wood personally explained to us the features of the Nokia 8800:

"With a Zen-like goal to balance form and functionality, the guiding principle of Nokia’s designers and engineers was to create a truly modern mobile phone – the epitome of style and elegance – which would be a pleasure to use and a delight to behold. The organic flowing lines and dynamic surfaces perfectly complement the stainless steel and resin materials – steel for its tensile strength and durability, and resin for its organic properties. The result is an elegant, “human” design, comprised of materials destined to age with grace. The slide mechanism of the Nokia 8800 has become a study in functional design. Using a bistable spring mechanism and stainless steel ball bearings similar to those used in high-performance automobiles, the keypad of the Nokia 8800 glides gracefully from its protective casing, revealing a hidden camera on the back."

Harmonious – form and balance
A mobile phone reveals a lot about its owner. People choose a model according to their personal lifestyle and taste, the ring tone is a favourite piece of music and here people store their most personal data such as addresses and photos. The design of the Nokia 8800 is well thought-out and clear, and for its owner it is an expression of a self-assured individuality. The phone presents itself as a statement of purism, accentuating a harmonious balance and sublime sensuousness, which follows the maxims of Zen. Its language of form was developed from the challenge to create a new housing shape for innovative technologies; a housing that would nevertheless maintain Nokia’s recognisable and familiar look. Softly rounded forms made of stainless steel give the impression of flowing surfaces with a tension of natural appearance. The design of this mobile phone seeks to attain its balance in a clear arrangement of detail and function and, thus, was inspired by watch and jewellery making. Due to borrowings from these fields, the Nokia 8800 now resembles an accessory with a feel of exclusiveness. An important design element is its precisely engineered slider mechanism for opening and closing the phone. It implies sophisticated functionality yet with a high degree of understatement. Attention to detail is evident even in the design of the sound quality, and in this regard too, the aspect of harmony is underlined: The Nokia 8800 has its own characteristic sound, by which one can recognise it. The “soundtrack” was composed by the Japanese musician and electronic music aesthete, Ryuichi Sakamoto, who found inspiration for his composition in the language of form and the organically rounded curves of this mobile phone.

About Pekka Majanen and Todd Wood

Pekka Majanen, born in 1972 in Helsinki, Finland, studied industrial design at the Kuopio Academy of Crafts and Design and, afterwards, joined Nokia Design. Since 1999, he has worked as an industrial designer in the Nokia design studio in Salo, Finland, where he works as a design specialist developing future designs and concepts for Nokia Enterprise Solutions. Of his many accomplishments at Nokia, Pekka Majanen has gained greatest recognition for his work on the Nokia 8800, Nokia’s first mobile phone encased in stainless steel.

Todd Wood currently serves as the Director of Insight & Design at Nokia Design. He is responsible for leading advanced design initiatives for Nokia Design in Los Angeles. This includes form factor innovation, trend research, category strategy and development, and concept projects that explore new opportunities through future experience scenarios. Prior to his current position, Todd Wood was the Category Design Specialist for Premium, responsible for the design evolution of the Premium category of mobile phones, and the Nokia 8800 specifically.