In a world where smartphones have become an extension of our identities, it’s not hard to see why we’re nostalgic for a time when everyone owned a Nokia. While the brand was a pioneer in integrating mobiles into our daily lives in the late 90s and early noughties, its failure to keep pace with tech giants like Apple and Samsung has been well documented over the years.

More recently though, Y2K’s resurgence within popular culture has seen growing numbers of Gen Z switch back to old mobile phones to reduce their screentime and be more present. Earlier this year, Nokia even reintroduced it’s 3210 model as it sought to tap into this sense of nostalgia and the era that phones first connected us.

Now, the brand’s cultural and technological contributions are being celebrated with the launch of the Nokia Design Archive. A team of researchers from Aalto University in Finland (where the brand was originally founded) has curated the online archive from over 20,000 individual items and 960GB worth of files, showcasing two decades of Nokia’s design history.

“I was teetering between joy and despair because there was such an overwhelming amount of work,” says lead researcher Anna Valtonen. Officially launching in January, the research team has translated the brand’s expansive physical archive into an online resource that the public can easily access.

Dating from the mid-90s to 2017, the 700 items on display illustrate how Nokia’s designers and decision makers shaped the way we connect today. These range from unlaunched prototypes and rare sketches through to marketing campaigns and iconic models, including the once ubiquitous 3310 ‘brick phone’ and the futuristic 8810 ‘banana phone’.

“Technology doesn’t just shape us; we shape technology,” says postdoctoral researcher Kaisu Savola. “When we started the project, the focus was on objects. As we began going through the material, we soon realised it was about the people.”

The Nokia Design Archive launches on January 15; aalto.fi