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Alexander Graham Bell
In 1876, inventor Alexander Graham Bell patented the first phone: a bulky device with a curved mouthpiece and earpiece connected by wires. -
Henry Dreyfuss
In the 1930s, famed industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss created what many consider to be the first modern telephone: the Model 302. Its design signaled a departure from earlier models: the ringer is in the phone (instead of a separate component), the cradle lies horizontally, and you speak and listen to the same piece resting on top. -
The Trimline
After the Model 302, AT&T realized it could sell the phone to the masses. The phone's traditionally square base was replaced by a slimmer design with a touchpad, called the Trimline, first produced by the phone company in 1965. Buttons for "*" and "#" were added too. -
The Grillo Cricket
As the 1960s went on, phones got even smaller. The Grillo Cricket, created by Italian designers Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper, can fold up, setting it apart from other phones at the time. The clam-shell shape influenced the design of the modern flip phone. -
Divestment from the Bell Company
Up until 1977, AT&T had a monopoly on phone design in the US. But that year, the Supreme Court lifted restrictions that once prevented people from buying and designing their own phones. This decision, along with AT&T's divestment from the Bell Company, resulted in all kinds of creative phone designs, including the '80s Beocom one below. -
The Enorme Telephone
Starting in the early 1980s, some companies experimented with high design phones. The Enorme Telephone boasts a box shape, foreshadowing popular phones to come — with geometric pops of primary colors. -
The First Cordless
Throughout the '80s, phones became unburdened from the cord. Pictured below is one such design for the cordless phone, called the Dancall 5000, by British designer John Stoddard. -
Phones are Getting Smaller
Phones started shrinking even more in the early '90s. You could charge the 1994 Talisman phone on the base that came with it. -
StarTAC
Two years later, Motorola launched the the StarTAC, a small gray flip phone with a display screen and oval keys. -
The Emergence of the IPhone
The iPhone, which debuted in 2007, transformed the phone by turning it into a tiny, mobile computer. Though other touchscreen phones had come before it, the iPhone's sleek interface revolutionized mobile phone design. Since, it has upgraded a total of ten years, with the X being available in 2017.
