London, United Kingdom
Nokia partnered with Lippincott on a full-scale transformation, fusing the brand’s rich heritage with a bold, digital-first identity fit for the future.
The goal was to unlock the brand’s next stage of growth while demanding recognition of Nokia as a leader in B2B technology innovation.
The project has been awarded a 2023 Good Design Award by The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
Nokia was once in the pockets of over a billion people worldwide.
However, over the past decade, the brand has evolved, transforming into a leader in B2B networking technology. But despite this evolution, most people have continued to see Nokia as a mobile phone company.
Working closely with the Nokia team, Lippincott got to work by distilling the company’s ambition into a brand positioning that reflects the valuable role Nokia plays: pioneering the future where networks meet cloud to accelerate the impact of digital in every industry.
They further articulated Nokia as a strategic collaborator and a distinctly human brand with a new purpose: “At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together.”
This purpose comes alive in a fresh new logo and visual identity, designed to signal change and help existing and prospective customers see Nokia in a new light.
Lippincott built the identity to echo Nokia’s rich heritage as the inventor of essential technologies while giving it a fresh, contemporary, dynamic feel to represent the Nokia of today.
This meant simplifying the geometry of the original logo and striking the right degree of visual evolution so the iconic logo, unchanged for more than half a century, was still instantly recognizable.
And, to visually represent Nokia’s purpose, the logo’s individual letters were abstracted so they only read as ‘Nokia’ when they act together.
The new digital-first identity goes further with a kaleidoscopic color palette and bold imagery that cuts through the industry’s sea of sameness. The logo’s N, O and K letterforms have been repurposed as bold graphics to use across all content, so every communication from the brand is distinctively Nokia.
Project: Driving Recognition for Nokia as a B2B Tech Powerhouse
Designers: Lippincott
Design Team: Lee Coomber, Louise Cantrill, Vimmi Sveinsson, Carl Baldwin, Timothy Stewart, Ariel Chan, Kannie Lam, and Josh Grazier
Client: Nokia Corporation
