Nokia launches new corporate font Nokia hasn't got much in the way of exciting and desirable new phones to show you - alas, the old management really buggered things up. The first Windows Phone won't be here until 2012. But here's the next best thing: a new corporate font will be unveiled in trendy Hoxton, the spiritual home of the web2.0 mediaslut. The font …
[i]"Some might see the 's' representing the curves the female body, while some might see it as a skirt, just like Marilyn [Monroe]'s", muses one artist.[/i]
Or we might see it as just another crappy font with no meaning whatsoever since we are artsy-fartsy turds.
Or, even more likely, most of us will never buy another Nokia with Win7 and thus will NEVER see the font at all.
Is 24th March some kind of early April fool in Finland? Love the wordsearch, so very Nathan Barley.
So Nokia drops a distinctive if polarising typeface for another Helvetica look-a-like? Come to our art exhibition and celebrate with us as we burn our brand on a funeral pyre of old logo carved from Finnish pine.
on the contrary, i see that alphabet soup picture as a forewarning of nokia's impending demise:
if you look at those three white lines that they used, i think that they are a condensed expression (and admission at the same time) of the entire company evolution: rise to glory, stagnation and then finally, crash and burn (i.e. bankruptcy or irrelevance in the market)
I can't be the only person who spent a few minutes looking for any unintentional words in that wordsearch, despite knowing that a thousand marketing guys have already done so. I was surprised to see CHROME though, working with Google? Seems out of place it they are just refering to the browser. And who are Alfy, Ray, Fred, and Tim?
Pretty generic font though, like a thousand others. No much point in branding if it is so indistinguishable.
There's some decisive action! I wasn't considering buying a Nokia handset, but this new font really has caught my eye!
There's a special pomposity about font designers, probably a result of someone being forced to care much about something so small and irrelevant (insert dick joke here).
... is a font and typeface genius. She makes new and earth shattering examples every day in multiple colors and in various media: crayons, finger painting, Etch-A-Sketch and etc. For that matter, so did Jethro Bodine in his sign shop. This is really IT news of the highest order.
Ask all those people - tech bloggers in particular - who has been whining for years about how TERRIBLE, just TERRIBLE the "Nokia font" is. World will perish. Kittens will be without cuddles. Universe will freeze over. And so on and so forth.
Now Nokia is going down the fluffy road to satisfy that lot. Well done, says I. Of course, it'd be better if they ignored the whiners (and Endgadget, and The Register, AND Elop) and kept doing what they do best: Symbian (and Maemo).
Counting down to the mandatory bitching about Symbian in 3 ... 2 ...
How does a company that has products that aren't attractive to users because they don't have the features that reviewers, and users want, think that a type face change will make a difference to their bottom line ?
I'd use whatever the type face was when products sold at their height (simple way to get familiarity/nostalgia) and put it on phones that people reviews liked and users wanted to buy.
Paying someone to mess with brand recognition when you don't have anything that will be positively associated with the new visual version of the brand seems dodgy thinking.
But who am I to ask, I don't run a mobile phone making business :( Have never owned a Nokia either :)
"How does a company that has products that aren't attractive to users because they don't have the features that reviewers, and users want ... "
Sorry to disagree, old chap, but you got that half wrong. From the sales numbers USERS want Nokia. Loads and loads and loads of Nokia. Reviewers don't, but then again they are in general too busy cuddling their [insert favourite toy here] .
Why Nokia listen to them and not their users ... I got no idea. Just wish they'd stop dicker, and release a N9[50] along the lines of the E7. And replace Elop.
If they license it to Microsoft, they can get $1 for every Windows installation....instant success.
And if they license the lowercase set they can make $2...
And if they add symbols and punctuation they can make $3...
I do have one question, though: Are they going to stop advertising in Russia, Japan, China, Egypt (and any other country that doesn't use this character set?
This isn't an all-caps face, it has a full repertoire.
One recurring criticism of Symbian was it's default font, Series60 Sans. Americans particularly do not like it, but then Americans prefer wider typefaces anyway (and English doesn't use long words that would require a more condensed face). I actually like this face for menu use, but it's not ideal for setting large amounts of text (web pages?).
The guy from Nokia was describing the face quite accurately, by the way, with very little waffle. Every trade has its own way of using the language. As a programmer who also does a bit of graphic design, let me translate for you:
"a natural, flowing form" <-- "natural" means that the curves are not simple geometric shapes, and are more like the curves found in natural objects than machine-drawn - the letter curves appear to be based on a superellipse, that staple of Scandinavian* design. "Flowing" means that the curves of one letter lead easily into those of the adjacent one.
"highly functional and neutral," <-- "neutral" means the typeface is suitable for use in a wide range of applications, without adding or distorting the message it's used to write. Helvetica is neutral, Times less so, but think of setting a technical spec in something like Zapfino, to see how a font can colour a message.
"Nokia Pure has a clarity of purpose" <-- This is waffle, but "clarity" is true. It looks like a nice, clear face.
"as little design as possible" <- there are no quirky characters like Helvetica's odd R, or Palatino's unclosed P that look "designed". All fonts are designed, meticulously. A good font is like a good referee, you don't notice it, but you know it's there.
"It’s made to celebrate human creativity." <- waffle.
The DesignWeek article that Andrew O lifted from has a couple more samples, for the typographically inclined. Overall, it's a silly launch for a nice typeface, but as it won't go on sale (it's a commission for Nokia, who will use it exclusively), the point is probably moot.
* and I know Finland isn't in Scandinavia.
Let me also add that Symbian font can be changed, for years. A basic file copy can work but there are more mature/safe ways.
Monotype guys also came up with an excellent idea to make money with it and released flipfont. I use it right now with the excellent Felbridge font on my E71.
Sad part is, this will never happen with windows phone, perhaps with some hacks it will happen but I hate the idea of hacking a mobile device.
Some people may be thinking why Nokia users (not reviewers) like Symbian, it is one of the several reasons.
"Nokia Pure has a clarity of purpose"
As opposed to Nokia's lack of purpose lately.
"and as little design as possible"
Exactly like Nokia who's not designing any new phone.
"It’s made to celebrate human creativity."
As opposed to Nokia's creativity.
I think this sentence is either:
1) Incredibly smart in its sarcasm.
2) Incredibly out of touch with the situtation Nokia is currently in.
Can't wait for their next exhibition:
Consumer: So, did you guys get your act together?
Nokia rep (excited): YES! Yes we definitely do!
Consumer: Great, show me this new phone.
Nokia rep: Well, not quite as much as a phone... or maybe even better... wait for it.... (hysterical) A NEW FONT!
Consumer: Are you effing kidding me?
Once again Nokia has shot its self in the foot, 200,000 existing fonts to choose from and they had to design another????
I hear they are about to layoff thousands of staff and then they spend millions on a new font, because customers will choose a phone because the font likes nice,
WAKE UP NOKIA SMELL THE COFFEE
There are reasons for companies coming up with their own designer font. Without getting into devices, let me tell the most basic one.
You "own" your font, you don't license it so the evil clone device maker (nokia's worst problem) will get into a more serious risk copying it. So they will never be able to perfectly copy your experience.
Speaking of clone guys, they must be partying after windows phone decision, they can basically license it from MS for stuff like "E777" models ;)
I would like to comment on the contents of the graphic in this article but I don't speak Finnish. If a translation could be provided I'll wow you all with my thoughts.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/stop_32.png http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/go_32.png http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/wtf_32.png
This is already the third corporate font that Nokia has introduced in the past ten years or so.
I worked for Nokia in 1998 to 2006, and remember font number 2, "Nokia Sans", being launched just a couple of years after font number 1, whose name I forget. I've often seen font #1 being used in displays, advertisements, etc., that have nothing to do with Nokia. So, I wonder if Nokia made a mistake with registering the intellectual property for #1, somehow letting it escape to the public domain, or at least failing to buy it exclusively for their own use. I don't see font #3, "Nokia Pure", being obviously superior to #1, even though Pure also looks quite nice, in my humble opinion.
Anyway, to all those complaining about how Nokia should focus on other things: it is one of the world's top consumer electronics companies, with over a billion customers. Good industrial design -- and to a lesser extent, a consistent corporate image -- are pretty important when competing in the consumer electronics market.
So, one can debate the merits of the particular font, or the need to change the corporate font so frequently, but it's a bit silly to imply that it's a waste of resources for Nokia to pay attention to their main corporate font. It's not like the rest of the company's over 130,000 employees were waiting on the font decision.
By the way, the wide font used in the NOKIA workmark is Eurostile Bold Extended: http://www.fontshop.com/search/?q=eurostile+bold+extended+. The wordmark is at least some decades old.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
