When Ben Wood shared his vision for the Mobile Phone Museum we were immediately engaged, quickly utilising our industrial design and prototyping expertise to assist with the launch collection.
The Opportunity
In a time before smartphones and apps, handset designs ruled. From the mid 90’s onwards all the major mobile phone manufacturers (From Nokia to Ericsson) were looking for a point of difference, they rapidly designed and innovated new handsets on a very regular basis, pushing boundaries and exploring new trends. It was a productive era for physical product design that delivered a tidal wave of memorable handsets that still generate strong emotional ties with any of the people that owned these products, including some of the older members of Phase Two Design.
Highly regarded Tech Analyst Ben Wood contacted us via a recommendation on LinkedIn and presented us with the Mobile Phone Museum concept along with a challenge for Phase Two to recreate one the most famous and iconic Bond phones to form part of the inaugural collection. The more we learnt about the plans for the Mobile Phone Museum, the more passionate we became about supporting them. We have spent many hours reminiscing about our favorite handsets from the past, which brings back other memories of waiting for the phone to ring for a job interview or a date to call back.
The Ericsson JB988 mobile phone heavily featured in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. It was a unique fictional creation most famous for opening up and transforming into a touch pad remote control that allowed James Bond to drive his BMW 750iL (very accurately, whilst being shot at) from the back seat. Additional features included a finger print scanner, lock pick and a 20,000 volt taser.
The Challenge
The major challenge was packing all the features in the original size, as seen in the film. Between us and the Mobile Phone Museum we extracted all the available footage from the film. After studying it closely we believe that several props were used to achieve the large number of features in the handset.
It would have been much easier to make the phone bigger to accommodate all of the necessary mechanics, but we wanted it to be authentic to the original size. Leveraging Phase Two's many years of product design and development experience, we battled for every 0.1 of a millimeter whist creating the data. The 3D CAD design data was tailored to a number of cutting edge technologies used to make the components. A key feature of the mobile handset is the spikes that are hiddden until they slide out the thin lower edge. To ensure these spikes had an authentic look and feel in the JB988 model, a 3D printing process known as Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) was employed to produce the parts in stainless steel.
The Result
Today marks the launch of the mobile phone museum and we are pleased to be showcasing our JB988 creation. We believe it is the first JB988 to include all the movie features at the original size, as seen in the movie.
This was only possible due to the advances in design tools and prototype technology and our deep understanding of them. There is currently only one of these handsets in existence. For now you can check it, and other memorable handsets at the Mobile Phone Museum
