The Birth of John’s Phone.

In 2005 John Doe Amsterdam launched the brand From The Supermarket. From The Supermarket is a no-nonsense brand, it doesn’t pretend to be anything more: it’s a good and honest product packed in a stylish and contemporary design. The attractiveness of the products is based on their quality and fresh appearance.
The first of a range of products was Water From The Supermarket; it enjoyed national and international popularity.

Soon we extending with new products like T-shirt From The Supermarket, Juice From The Supermarket all had the same promise: back to the basics.

The From The Supermarket products got the ball rolling. We thought, you know what, let’s challenge ourselves. Let’s make the most basic phone ever.

We have many years of experience working for telecom companies. Our strengths, our skills, our experience and our unique perspective will see us through this challenge.

We’ve always wondered why most affordable phone looks so dull and boring.
All cell phones are great high-tech product we like to use every day. Why not spend more time in designing. It’s the things we don’t see that are the most essential to creating a great design. A great design is a present.Why not make yourself happy with a present everyday in your pocket.

When we started designing our phone the smart phone market grew impressive. Mobile phones are more than just convenient communication tools: They allow you to sync with the calendar on your PC, dial a number by the sound of your voice, look up breaking news on the Internet, take photos, play games, send text messages, listen to music, and more.

The first design did not have a display for energy reasons.

A sample of our design from 2005. Phone without display but with led lights.

But not everybody wants to be in contact all the time. And sifting through the sea of features and cool extra aspects can be difficult to just do what you want do with a phone to make a call. For those needing a break break from today’s technology , John’s Phone is  ideal. True, you won’t get your email or text messages, you won’t be able to find out where you are, there is no gps, or play the latest games… but you know what? It feels good to go without sometimes.

John’s gift for non John’s users.

John’s wants to make the Non John’s Users happy as well.

So for all the people who rather use an I phone  instead of  a John’s phone we have a special gift:

John’s phone-iphone-wallpaper to make your iPhone feel a little bit like John’s.

Stay tuned and see when other goodies are uploaded on this website. Thanks to MiXthepiX for the wallpapers.

John’s Journey to the Netherlands.

John’s journey takes a bit longer than expected. It’s a hard journey. We received a few photos from John’s journey and we think it will arrive shortly.

The long- awaited dumb Phone arrived in the USA.

Hot News · Watch NOS Headlines · Expert’s opinion on John’s Phone.

(Sorry, only in Dutch…)

More than 200 display designs in the most simple phone.

True simplicity has to be more than skin deep, more than a façade.
Does our mission statement fit the every component of the phone?
Our mission statement is just a simple and functional phone which does what it promises: calling wherever you are. Every component/ aspect of the phone is simple.

Design should not only look great but it should also fit its purpose. That is why we designed John’s Phone very user friendly what means very practical and easy.
Although you can not text with John’s you can see the incoming/outgoing numbers.

John’s Phone has a special designed screen on top of the phone.
For this screen we designed over 200 graphics. Graphics carefully designed for a particular screen size. In the screen you meet Fony. Fony is John’s character, who shows up in your screen to say welcome, hello, bye and much more.
Fony represents all kind of different aspects of John’s; Fony makes John’s a friendly phone.
For instance while the phone is charging you see Fony getting electrocuted. Or while the phone is stand-by you see Fony sleeping in his bed.

Not in every screen you see Fony, we designed many screens without Fony
Like the screen for to pre-program your John’s phone with phone numbers.
Your favorite numbers can be pre-programmed and saved under each numeric button. A little animation with stars shows you that you saved a number under the chosen key-button.

My favorite feature is John’s Energy.

The battery is a unique feature on John’s phone. We wanted the battery life as long as possible to fits is promise of most simple phone.
In order to have a great energy capacity it was necessary to make the display as small as possible. But on the other hand the display should be clear and useful. All the graphics should be readable.
As battery icon we chose to use John’s logo. The logo gets smaller and bigger depending how much energy is left in the phone.

Designing the display screen was a great deal of work as it only uses 128 x 32 pixels. We wanted the display to be white with black graphics so it has a clean and graphic feel.

Hidden secrets
Some graphics are hidden and can only be found by a few lucky people.

Bright.nl has the most respected ‘hands on’ review of John’s Phone.

Links:

Dutch link.

English Translated.

John’s funky colors and components to spice up your call.

The main color of your phone can have an effect on your mood.

John’s phone is designed in special colors. The color of a phone can really make or break a great design.

About colors;  a color can influence our mood and our thoughts. Colors affect people in many ways, depending upon one’s age, gender, ethnic background or local climate. So it’s important to choose wisely.

We always wondered why all phones look so serious; all those black/ grey small boxes we carry around every day  just look so dull. Why?

Why not a bright pink phone? Or a superloud raspberry-and-yellow checked phone?

Unique colors, like brown, pink and  green, can get your phone noticed.

A phone‘s color reflects the taste and mood of the buyer.

Pre-Order at our little webshop.

Note:  Whatever color you choose make sure it’s in the color you enjoy.

John’s in China.

Hein in China (Guangzhou) with the first working proto type in 2006.

Test models from 2007.

Late 2006 design sample.

We got many Chinese friends. In 2006 and 2007 Hein traveled the most to China to do production checking, raw materials confirmation, etc. The best way to work in China is to be there. By visiting you definitely learn who not to do business with. So we traveled a lot to China and visited many factories in China. We got a huge mix, good and bad manufactories. The best factories are the one with Government contacts, they are highly influential and using the Chinese Government system to assist you as a buyer will “guarantee” better products, delivery and financial transactions.

John’s opened an online shop.

John’s has also a small online shop now. Go see John’s Little online Shop. All John’s are ready for pre-order and will be shipped from october.

The online store is only in Dutch. We apologize for the inconvenience. John’s sales team is working hard to get the english version online.