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Designing ideas
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Axel Meyer, the head of design, Nokia, on designing N97
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Connectivity Axel Meyer of Nokia
Three hours into media interactions and presentations and this livewire Latin American is ready to dive right into his next interview. After all, it isn’t every day that a behind-the-scenes designer gets to express his love for his pet project,
the much-talked-about Nokia N97 in this case.
Axel Meyer, currently the head of design at Nokia, has worked on every N Series product released by the Finnish global communications giant. Meyer says he can’t keep his hands off his creation. Being part of creating an object or device that has changed the face of human interactions, he says is not just about the product. “In many ways, we really are the voice of society. I believe what marketers were to the 21st century, designers are to the present — revolutionising the way we see the world, not as markets but as people.”
He throws his hands up in the air with excitement when asked about his eureka moments with his latest gadget. “So many! But the best one was when we hit upon that perfect design, one that doesn’t flip or slide open horizontally, but slides out at the perfect angle.”
Another significant addition is ‘gesture control’, which Meyer claims will be the DNA of mobile phones in the future. “For years my grand mom has had to bang furiously at the snooze button. Gesture control incorporates something natural like turning the phone over to snooze or even cut calls,” he says .
Besides being the first touch screen phone in this series, it offers a QWERTY key-board (designed for speed typing), not to mention 32 GB memory, expandable to 48 GB (almost double of what most phones offer). The challenge, he says , is in understanding what people need from a certain gadget.
The team is known to have visited several cities in India and conducted in-depth market studies in metros and tier-II cities to understand the Indian user’s psyche. Ask him about favourite application on the gadget and pat comes the reply — Face book. “I don’t have too many friends, but I like to keep in touch. That I can see them on my screen, connect to FB in a second and always be clued in is amazing to me.”
DEEPA KURUP
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