jonathan ive article in the guardian
guardian
He is the quintessential designer. He knows more than anyone what we will have in our hands in five years
From creating toilets to shaping the iPod - the rise and rise of the Apple genius
Ian Sample
Friday January 5, 2007
The Guardian
Jonathan Ive was on stage, lovingly dismantling an iBook laptop in front of an audience of enraptured designers. For more than an hour, he handled the object, describing the journey of its creation, revealing the elegant necessity of every curve, hinge and surface. The laptop uncovered, he pointed to a tiny, bespoke toolset built into the rear casing, a delight for any service engineer. Meticulous attention to detail has become a hallmark of Ive's work, but contemporaries describe his talent as more profound than that.
As senior vice-president of industrial design at Apple Computer in Cupertino, California, the 39-year-old former Essex boy is widely regarded as the most important British designer of our time.
Studio
From a studio at the company's headquarters, Ive and his small team of trusted designers have defined the look of a generation, first with the iBook and iMac, and latterly the ubiquitous iPod range, whose owners include the Queen, Tony Blair and George Bush. (Gordon Brown was offered a slick black one as a gift, but decided to buy it when officials realised it exceeded the ministerial limit.) This week, Ive joined 2003 Turner prize winner Grayson Perry and singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen in the 2007 edition of Who's Who.
Beyond Ive's talent, he is famous for his privacy. He gives interviews rarely. Apple says it does not have his precise date of birth. His Who's Who entry states only that he was born in 1967, and fails to mention he is the father of twins. What has emerged is that he is thoughtful, brutally honest, passionate and self-deprecating. He lives modestly in a two-bedroom house in Twin Peaks, a district outside San Francisco, with his wife, Heather, a historian. He counts Paul Smith and DJ John Digweed among his friends. His one concession to luxury appears to be an Aston Martin, bought more for its looks than its symbolism.
Born in Chingford to a teacher turned school inspector, Ive went to Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University) to study industrial design. He immediately displayed an enormous talent. He would seek out unusual influences for his designs, but had an instinctive ability to combine them into products that captured the zeitgeist. For his final-year project, Ive developed an alternative monetary system, a pebble-like object which could be charged up and used instead of cash or credit cards. It was a groundbreaking idea. "It is a unique capacity that he has. You see his kind of talent probably once in a lifetime of teaching students," said Bob Young, who taught Ive during his degree course at Newcastle. In 1989, Ive graduated with first class honours, his mark far, far beyond the 70% needed to make the grade. A year later, he joined the London design company Tangerine and worked on projects from toilets to video cassette recorders. Before pitching designs for a new bathroom suite to the Hull-based company Ideal Standard, he bought marine biology books and scoured them for influences from nature.
"He's particularly good on a broad basis, in that he can work on anything," said Martin Darbyshire, chief executive of Tangerine. "If you look at the work he did here, it still looks contemporary. He has a gift of not putting too much in, which is a danger for many designers. His passion to keep going and his attention to detail set him way, way apart from anything the majority of his contemporaries could produce."
Ive joined Apple in 1992, when the company was in disarray, and at first found the work frustrating. His rise to public prominence coincided with the return to Apple of ebullient chief executive Steve Jobs, who reinvigorated the company he helped found. He later joined the board, where his ability and track record have earned him unprecedented trust. Ive's first major success, the colourful all-in-one iMac computer, was inspired by the glistening transparency of gumdrops, and came as a reaction against the blandness of the beige desktop computers that dominated offices worldwide. But contemporaries claim his greatest design success as the iPod, the MP3 player which has sold millions of units and become a classic.
He is the quintessential designer. He knows more than anyone what we will have in our hands in five years
From creating toilets to shaping the iPod - the rise and rise of the Apple genius
Ian Sample
Friday January 5, 2007
The Guardian
Jonathan Ive was on stage, lovingly dismantling an iBook laptop in front of an audience of enraptured designers. For more than an hour, he handled the object, describing the journey of its creation, revealing the elegant necessity of every curve, hinge and surface. The laptop uncovered, he pointed to a tiny, bespoke toolset built into the rear casing, a delight for any service engineer. Meticulous attention to detail has become a hallmark of Ive's work, but contemporaries describe his talent as more profound than that.
As senior vice-president of industrial design at Apple Computer in Cupertino, California, the 39-year-old former Essex boy is widely regarded as the most important British designer of our time.
Studio
From a studio at the company's headquarters, Ive and his small team of trusted designers have defined the look of a generation, first with the iBook and iMac, and latterly the ubiquitous iPod range, whose owners include the Queen, Tony Blair and George Bush. (Gordon Brown was offered a slick black one as a gift, but decided to buy it when officials realised it exceeded the ministerial limit.) This week, Ive joined 2003 Turner prize winner Grayson Perry and singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen in the 2007 edition of Who's Who.
Beyond Ive's talent, he is famous for his privacy. He gives interviews rarely. Apple says it does not have his precise date of birth. His Who's Who entry states only that he was born in 1967, and fails to mention he is the father of twins. What has emerged is that he is thoughtful, brutally honest, passionate and self-deprecating. He lives modestly in a two-bedroom house in Twin Peaks, a district outside San Francisco, with his wife, Heather, a historian. He counts Paul Smith and DJ John Digweed among his friends. His one concession to luxury appears to be an Aston Martin, bought more for its looks than its symbolism.
Born in Chingford to a teacher turned school inspector, Ive went to Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University) to study industrial design. He immediately displayed an enormous talent. He would seek out unusual influences for his designs, but had an instinctive ability to combine them into products that captured the zeitgeist. For his final-year project, Ive developed an alternative monetary system, a pebble-like object which could be charged up and used instead of cash or credit cards. It was a groundbreaking idea. "It is a unique capacity that he has. You see his kind of talent probably once in a lifetime of teaching students," said Bob Young, who taught Ive during his degree course at Newcastle. In 1989, Ive graduated with first class honours, his mark far, far beyond the 70% needed to make the grade. A year later, he joined the London design company Tangerine and worked on projects from toilets to video cassette recorders. Before pitching designs for a new bathroom suite to the Hull-based company Ideal Standard, he bought marine biology books and scoured them for influences from nature.
"He's particularly good on a broad basis, in that he can work on anything," said Martin Darbyshire, chief executive of Tangerine. "If you look at the work he did here, it still looks contemporary. He has a gift of not putting too much in, which is a danger for many designers. His passion to keep going and his attention to detail set him way, way apart from anything the majority of his contemporaries could produce."
Ive joined Apple in 1992, when the company was in disarray, and at first found the work frustrating. His rise to public prominence coincided with the return to Apple of ebullient chief executive Steve Jobs, who reinvigorated the company he helped found. He later joined the board, where his ability and track record have earned him unprecedented trust. Ive's first major success, the colourful all-in-one iMac computer, was inspired by the glistening transparency of gumdrops, and came as a reaction against the blandness of the beige desktop computers that dominated offices worldwide. But contemporaries claim his greatest design success as the iPod, the MP3 player which has sold millions of units and become a classic.
Comments
The iPod, a clean, easy-to-use white box, arrived on the market just as the digital music revolution took hold and helped cement Apple's leadership. Its white headphones and innocent look are likely to have influence for years to come, as emblematic of fashion in the 2000s as Sony Walkmans were in the 1980s.
Ive's Who's Who entry joins a long list of plaudits. In 2003 he won the Design Museum's inaugural designer of the year competition, being named the most influential designer for the iMac and iPod. Last year he was awarded a CBE. "Jonathan Ive defines the look of the generation," said David Kester, chief executive of the Design Council. "He is the quintessential industrial designer. And he knows more than anyone what we're going to be holding in our hands five years from now."
The CV
Born February 1967, in London; raised in Chingford, Essex
Family Lives in California with wife Heather, a historian, and twin sons
Education Art and design, Newcastle Polytechnic
Career Co-founded design consultancy Tangerine in 1989; joined Apple Computer in 1992; made vice-president of industrial design in 1998; appointed senior vice-president of design in 2005; designed iMac, iBook, PowerBook G4, iMac G5 and iPod
Awards Two RSA student design awards; Design Museum designer of the year 2003; appointed member of Royal Designers for Industry 2003; RSA Benjamin Franklin Medal 2004; British Design & Art Direction (D&AD) president's award 2005; CBE 2006
(ducks to avoid first gen. iPods and hockey puck mice being thrown...)
but yeah, that interviewer was too close to gushing.
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