22 November 2008

Alastair Curtis, Nokia's Chief
Talks About His Inspirations And What's Next

In an interview published on Forbes yesterday, Alastair Curtis, Nokia’s primary designer, talks about his inspirations and upcoming Nokia devices.

If you’re a huge Nokia fan, Alastair Curtis is the well known name for most of you, but for those who don’t know, Alastair Curtis is the man with one of the coolest job in the wireless industry.

He joined the company in 1993 and has held a number of senior positions including Design Director of Nokia’s Los Angeles Design Center and Head of Design for Mobile Phones, Nokia’s largest business unit.

As Nokia’s chief designer, a post the company veteran has held since 2006, he influences the look and feel of the millions of cellphones the Finnish communications giant produces each year. Curtis describes his role as promoting “the intelligent use of creativity” within Nokia. He says he feels privileged to work in a fast-moving industry–his team just completed a first take on the firm’s 2010 product portfolio–but also stresses the importance of doing something right, as opposed to first.

He holds a Master of Arts degree in Industrial Design Engineering from the Royal College of Art in London, a Diploma of Engineering from Imperial College, and a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design from Brunel University.

Forbes.com met with Curtis in New York recently to discuss his design inspirations, coming Nokia devices and how Indian teenagers will influence the future of mobility.

Forbes.com: As a designer, what visually inspires you?

Alastair Curtis: I was reading about a chef who doesn't get inspiration from food but from textures and the countryside and people. I think it's no different for designers. Some people look at the latest trends in the automotive world, the Milan furniture show, fashion. Personally, I get my greatest inspiration from walking the streets--the energy of cities, whether London, New York or Tokyo, or the countryside. It's quite voyeuristic. Watching people interact in a group is fascinating.

Forbes.com: Nokia is famous for its ethnography research and research centers. How much do you collaborate with those units?

Alastair Curtis:In the reorganization Nokia did at the end of last year, we made a commitment to create a user interface/user interaction design team. We also made a huge investment in ergonomics and user experience. We decided to [mix everyone together] to create multi-disciplinary teams of traditional product designers, color specialists, interaction designers and ergonomists.

Lots of the work the research centers do is designed with us. A recent nanotechnology project was a complete collaboration. We try to take things in where appropriate. But the whole premise of the [centers] is that they are looking much further out. It's a roadmap as opposed to a direct translation.

Forbes.com: Will you continue to follow that structure going forward?

Alastair Curtis: Yes, very much so. Historically, I'm an industrial designer but that's because when I went through my education, that was the creative field that was the most dominant. At the end of the day, my strength is creativity, not industrial design. That [approach] future-proofs the design team to grow and adapt to the dynamics of a creative challenge. In simplistic terms, today the game that everyone is playing is basketball, but in the future it will be soccer or something else.

Forbes.com: Nokia recently launched its first touchscreen phone. Are higher-end touchscreen devices on the way?

Alastair Curtis: The 5800 is a full touchscreen for a much broader mass market. It's not trying to take on the iPhone head to head. Arguably, we already have a touchscreen "N series" product with the N800. We'll see touch coming to the broader N Series products, too. That's about as much as I can say.

Touch is basically about improving user interaction, so the challenge is, how do you improve it on the high end and for those people who buy the $20 and $30 phones as well?

Forbes.com: I see you use a netbook [Asus' Eee PC]. What's Nokia's interest in netbooks?

Alastair Curtis: I purposely bought the Eee PC to understand that space. What you get for what you pay is quite amazing. There's a natural convergence starting to happen between smart phones, cheaper laptops, tablets and netbooks. It will be a fascinating space in the next year or two years.

We constantly encourage the team to buy things like the Kindle, cheap laptops, digital cameras, portable navigation devices--anything that's in our immediate horizon to understand how it would translate into a mobile device. What happens in that dimension, when it's with you all the time?

Forbes.com: You've mentioned that mobile TV, video and mobile projectors are an important future trend.

Alastair Curtis: There's a great wave of media consumption coming through the Internet of music, video, TV, games. Devices are becoming a portal into that world, that second life. At the same time, we're victims of a plasma screen society. But carrying around a 42-inch TV isn't a reasonable solution. So, how do you make something that's small in pocket, large in use?

That's where the projector starts to take on value. In a hotel or bar, I could project images to myself or to a larger audience. We'll see not just projectors, but jewel [fold-out] screens and multiple screens in the years to come. E-ink is here, so how does it get applied? Is it about the whole thing being one big screen? How does that change the way we interact? Screen technology will be a critical part of changing the way we interact and consume media.