While the phone market is being quickly overtaken by the smartphones and iPhones from the world, Nokia is re-organizing itself to approach full force its position as a leader in the cellphone industry. Their kind of approach is based on its core philosophy: beautiful and effective design that can go over language or cultural limitations without losing its identity. One of their biggest steps? The creation of a "universal" font, one that can be read in most languages without losing its spirit.
“An elegantly simple typeface that doesn’t draw attention to itself, but is still distinctive and different. For me, it’s the rhythm of the typeface and the relationship between characters that’s critical. After all, when it’s set in Arabic, you still need to know that it’s Nokia, and this is achieved by creating a recognizable rhythm.”
This font is called Nokia Pure, a typeface specially designed by Dalton Maag along with the Nokia team. This updated look comes hand in hand with the new phone generation coming out and this time they went with a complete makeover when it comes to its font identity.
The first called decision was the use of a humanist sans serif type -a style that feels very modern without compromising the calligraphic essence of the font. The result is a modern font that channels a handwritten style that distances itself from the usual screen ones but being at the same time carefully designed to perform well on different devices.
After establishing the basic latin alphabet, the design moved on to other languages; task that was approached not from a purely visual point of view. The process focused on in-depth research regarding the different scripts the font needs to be translated to, aiming to accurately reflect the font's style no matter what language it is in.
Needless to say, this strategy by Nokia certainly puts them ahead in the industry when it refers to graphic design. An appropriate, original and universal design is what makes a brand succeed which makes this typeface a great step in that direction. By doing this Nokia is making a statement as a truly global brand.