Recently got a page of Time Magazine from 1961 containing this Ericsson / Ericofon advertisement. Lovely to see the historic context.

A few weeks ago I ran into this advertisement in the magazine Interavia. In the 3rd edition of 1963 there was this advertisement of Ericsson, manifesting themselves in relation to military electronics.

I certainly do not hope that the electronics of the Saab 37 Viggen were of the same complexity as that of the Ericofon… 🙂 Designwise there should be a tighter connection I expect.

Quality for sure is recognizable as many Ericofons still work, even after more than 50 years.

Of course you must see this picture in the right historic perspective. This advertisement is already over 55 years old and published at the peak of the cold war. Luckily times have changed. Ericsson has abandonned military involvement already many years ago and focusses still today on what it can do best since 1876: telecommunications.

A small clip that I encountered on Youtube last week. Broadcasted by the French TV station Arte in 2006, a small history of the Ericofon. For the linguists amongst us as it is in French.

This week I found a nice short article as published in the ‘Nieuwe Leidse Courant’ on May 22nd 1970. I have translated the text below in case your Dutch knowledge is not that well developed. This was approximately 8 years before the Ericofon was introduced in The Netherlands. Can you imagine that one model has such a long lifecycle today?

Futuristic Telephone

According to an investigation in West-Germany, 8% of our neighbors has a telephone in… the bathroom. In that same room, 38% of the Germans read. The bathroom is becoming a sort of relax-room, a new status-symbol. Of course a room like that deserves a special telephone.

A bright future is being predicted for this modern model where – we cannot see it very well in the picture – the dial face is in the bottom of the phone.

The Ericofon is available in 9 different colors so you are able to extensively harmonize with your interior: red, pink, yellow, green, blue, gray, ivory, tan or white. ALL parts, microphone, telephone and dial face are combined in one thermoplastic housing.

The phone has a comfortable fit in your hand, and when one picks up the phone, the dial face comes towards you. This is extremely handy for ill people, the elderly or very hasty businessmen.

In my hometown we have the ‘Textielmuseum‘ (Museum of Textiles) for many years already. It is there because the city has an history in the production of textiles and fabrics until the 1960-70’s. Production was, around that time, slowly moved to other, lower cost countries. And all that was left were empty factories which in the end became part of the cities industrial heritage.

And since 1958 the Textielmuseum. 🙂

From June 9th 2018 till November 11th 2018 there will be an exhibition called ‘Simply Scandinavian | Nordic Design 1945-2018‘.‘Does this information have anything to do with Ericofons?’ I can hear you say. Of course the main subject will be related to fabrics I expect. I was asked to deliver an Ericofon to match the exhibition. There will be other items shown as well as I understood.

It would be an honor to do so, no doubt about that. A shiny Mandarin red Telia Ericofon will appear somewhere in the exhibition. I am really excited.

Besides the Ericofon, I expect the exhibition to be very interesting as well. So please support the museum and go there!! They have lots of interesting stuff.

As said, the museum exists for a long time already and I can remember the first time I visited it, over 40 years ago. It must be back in 1975 or so…  It was in the pre-GPS-era so we got lost on our bikes going there with some schoolfriends.  But in the end we managed to find the museum.

It was there, it is still there and it will always be there.

Update 08/06/2018:

Today we were invited to the opening of the exhibition. It was fantastic!! If you are interested in design I can for sure recommend it to you. Not only the Ericofon was there, which is a reason in itself…, but many other items that you might recognize from the early days.

The exhibition will be there until November 11th 2018.  Worth mentioning that the Textielmuseum was ‘Museum of the year 2017’.

But in the end all I can say is that the museum is still there… and that you have to visit it!!

Update 04/10/2018:

Some time ago I received professionally pictures made by Josefina Eikenaar for the Textielmuseum. Two of them are shown below, much better than the ones I made. 😉

As winter has its long dark evenings and there is not so much to do, I was spending my time on the internet. Nothing better to do I guess. Actually the same reason why you are here. 😉

I came across a few nice cartoons with the Ericofon playing the role of the phone in the story. Well casted!

Les Aventures de Jodelle by Guy Peellaert & Pierre Bartier (Paris 1966)

Les Panthères: L’ Homme qui refusait la vie by Édouard Aidans & Michel Greg (Brussels 1974)

These two examples are not really new but they reflect an older world, like 40-50 years ago. If you have any more recent examples, let me know and I will be happy to add them here.