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"Napkin Sketch" Nokia ad, originally uploaded by blackbeltjones.

Pleasantly surprised by these new adverts of ours.

Gone are the cheesy grinning yoof models gleefully living the ‘mobile lifestyle’, and instead we have a languidly expressive line sketching the form of the new phone.

It’s the archetypal ‘back of the envelope’ sketch that captures the essence of the design, communicates it to another with casual power.

I like that the ad is not covered with ‘features’, ‘benefits’, acronyms or tech specs either. It’s confident enough to say the clear, simple design of this object will sell it to you, or not.

The fact that this can now be the primary image in the advert also shows the iconic status of the clamshell as the shape of mobile telephony in the popular mind.

Which is going to be an interesting challenge for all the mobile device manufacturers when they want to innovate beyond that – not just Nokia.

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p.s. I hate those pompous “disclosure” lines that people use when writing about companies they work for, but as you may know, I work for Nokia, and usually I hate their adverts, so was prompted to write this, the views here stated may not be those of my employers, yadda, yadda.