Category: Northern Telecom – BNR
Cliff Read Collection
Photo’s Below.
The Cliff Read Collection
Northern Telecom – Bell-Northern Research
This rare and historically significant collection showcases the creative legacy of Cliff Read, a long-time industrial designer and contributor to many of Northern Telecom’s most innovative telephone projects.
The collection includes prototype and field-trial units, engineering samples, and several telephones personally used by Cliff himself. It also features four framed recognition prints and two un-framed celebrating his design achievements, along with an extensive portfolio of sketches, drawings, slides, and photographs documenting his design process.
Donated Telephones
- 1977 – Alexander Graham Plane (Orange Soft Tooling Sample – Used, low production, Signed)
- 1977 – Doodle Phone (Brown Rotary – New, with Vinyl Kangaroo Carry Bag)
- 1978 – Diplomat Café (Touch-Tone – Open Box, Used)
- 1980 – Field Trial FT-113 (Brown Touch-Tone – Test Used)
- 1981 – Silver Alexander Graham Plane (Engineering Sample – Hand-painted in-house for the Nashville Plant Prototype)
- 1983 – Ditto Plus (Ivory Touch-Tone – Canadian Version, Open Box)
- 1984 – Ditto (Almond Touch-Tone – New)
- 1984 – Ditto (Almond Touch-Tone – Canadian Version, Open Box, Used)
- 1985 – Ditto (Almond Touch-Tone – U.S. Version, Open Box, Used)
- 1986 – Harmony (Red Touch-Tone – New in Box, Signed)
- 1986 – Signature (Gray Touch-Tone ×2 – Open Box, Used)
- 1987 – Priority (White Touch-Tone – New)
- 1987 – Priority (Black Touch-Tone – New)
- 1987 – Priority LE (Black Touch-Tone – New in Box)
- 1990 – Priority (Engineering Sample, Black Rubber Finish – In-house Colour Test, Used, Signed)
- 1994 – Vista 250 (Gray-Ivory Touch-Tone – Used)
- 1995 – SoundBeam (Gray Field Trial Prototype – Used, Signed)
- 1996 – Wallet Phone (Black Leather Prototype – Display Sample, Signed)
- 1998 – Venture (Black Touch-Tone – New in Box)
Framed Prints and Recognition Artwork
- M3000 Touchphone – Contributor Recognition Print 1 (Framed)
- M3000 Touchphone – Contributor Recognition Print 2 (Signed)
- Speaker Button Design – Concept by Cliff Read
- SoundBeam Advanced Personal Handsfree Device – Development Recognition Print
- Harmony Telephone – Finalist, Industrial Design Award
- SoundBeam Display Print (Signed)
Portfolio Materials
A large assortment of original sketches, drawings, photographs, and 35mm slides compiled by Cliff throughout his career, illustrating his concept development and product evolution across 27 years of design at BNR/Nortel.
Credit and Acknowledgment
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Cliff Read for his generous contribution of Northern Telecom / BNR historical materials including prototype, field-trial, and new-in-box telephones as well as some of his remarkable design portfolio.
While some of these concepts made it to market, others remained as prototypes, offering a fascinating glimpse into Northern Telecom’s industrial design evolution and the creative process behind its most distinctive products.
About Cliff Read
Cliff Read began his career at Bell-Northern Research (BNR) in March 1974, hired by John Tyson into the Design Interpretive Department. Over his career as an industrial designer, he contributed to numerous projects from the decorator phones and electronic basic sets of the 1970s to advanced feature sets of the 1990s.
He took special pride in seeing his designs reach the public, including the Vista 250/350 residential feature phones and the Millennium card-reader pay phones. Cliff often credited the success of these products to the user-interface teams who ensured their intuitiveness, and he fondly recalled how many of his designs gained wide acceptance despite early skepticism from traditionalists in engineering and marketing.
