Client: Nokia & Microsoft Lumia

Case Study: Core Brand Sound Updates

This section highlights key design work whilst in-house at Nokia and Microsoft. This includes the Nokia Core Sounds 2013 project, and the follow-up project for the new Microsoft Lumia brand - a key update that would see the Nokia Tune replaced.

Nokia Core Sounds 2013

I led the development of Nokia’s Core Sounds for the 2013 update, a key project to update the default set of mobile sounds. This included the default ringtone (Nokia Tune), message alert, calendar alert, email alert, clock alert, and start-up sound. For the first time ever, we also introduced a new audio logo to be used on product videos.

The sounds were created as one holistic set of sounds, starting out from the Nokia Tune - the heart and soul of the audio identity. The update built on the major changes made to the Nokia Tune in the previous refresh in 2011 (a project I also led, taking the Nokia Tune from the laid back guitar-based folk style, to a refined genre-neutral version based on the marimba instrument).

My designs were selected for use after senior management reviews and extensive user testing (using both on-line quantitative preference tests and qualitative audio expert tests). The final sounds can be heard from this video below, which features a Nokia Asha 501 device. All sounds are designed by me, apart from the Alarm Clock Alert which was co-created with Hannu Af-Ursin.

Microsoft Lumia Core Sounds 2014

This project was set up to replace the Nokia Tune, introducing a new default set of sounds. All smartphone devices would change to the new Microsoft Lumia brand name, so the Nokia Tune would no longer be used (although I did help bring it back 5 years later). Our team were tasked with creating a new default ringtone, and my design was selected. This was again following extensive texting and reviews. It was based on a similar tonality to the Nokia Core Sounds work from 2013, whilst blending together two popular ringtone melodies from the current Windows Phone set.

I also created the default alerts for the new Microsoft Lumia brand. These all had strong links to the previous Nokia 2013 versions.