Who Is Jonathan Ive?

[aryayush]

SEPTEMBER 25, 2006
INSIDE INNOVATION - IN FOCUS

Who Is Jonathan Ive?
An in-depth look at the man behind Apple's design magic



Last spring, an eclectic mix of designers thrilled an auditorium full of their peers at a conference called Radical Craft, put on by the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi told inspiring stories of his rise to fame. Artificial intelligence pioneer Danny Hillis showed off a topographical computer display that could render anything, even the Himalayas, in three dimensions. Dutch inventor Theo Jansen brought one of his VW-size "beach creatures" made of plastic PVC tubes that "walked" across the stage like some George Lucas-inspired interstellar crab.

But the headliner of the show made a decidedly less showy impression. Shambling onto the stage with a nearly shaved head and dark T-shirt, Apple Computer (AAPL ) Senior Vice-President for Industrial Design Jonathan Ive looked like grad student who had gotten lost on the way to Starbucks (SBUX ). The 39-year-old Brit slouched unfabulously in his seat and quietly answered questions from conference host and award-winning editor, Chee Pearlman. Despite countless invitations, he refused to trumpet his own design prowess or to dish on what it's like to work with his perfectionist boss, Steve Jobs.

Read more...

(London born designer Jonathan Ive is the senior vice president of Industrial Design at Apple, reporting directly to the CEO. Since 1996 he has been responsible for leading a design team widely regarded as one of the world’s best.

Recognized with numerous design awards, Apple products have become celebrated design icons featured in the permanent collections of museums worldwide including MOMA in New York and the Pompidou in Paris.

Ive holds a Bachelor of Arts and an honorary doctorate from Newcastle Polytechnic. In 2003 he was named Designer of the Year by the Design Museum London and awarded the title Royal Designer for Industry by The Royal Society of Arts.)


A highly recommended read. He is a phenomenal person.

[aryayush]

May/June 2007
The Secret of Apple Design
The inside (sort of) story of why Apple's industrial-design machine has been so successful.
By Daniel Turner


In the details: Clear plastic coats parts of the first iPod, an example of the “double-shot” manufacturing process.
Credit: Peter Berlanger


Apple, Inc. has made an art of not talking about its products. Fans, journalists, and rumormongers who love it or love to hate it have long had to practice a sort of Kremlinology to gather the merest hints as to what is coming next out of Cupertino.

A case in point is this story, which was to be about the iPhone--about how an innovative and gorgeous piece of technology was conceived, designed, and produced by the vaunted industrial-design team at Apple. Along the way, it would address the larger question of how one company can so consistently excel at making products that become icons, win design awards, and inspire customers.

But the omerta that prevails at Apple proved too strong. Company representatives declined to speak with me, and sources only tangentially engaged with the industrial-design process said that they could not talk either. When I asked Paul Kunkel, author of the 1997 book AppleDesign, for tips on obtaining interviews, he laughed and said, "Go sit outside the design-group offices with a pizza." What follows is as clear a picture of the Apple design process as we could get.

Designers tend to speak about the "genetic code" of products and companies. Pontiacs and BMWs, for example, can be recognized but also distinguished from each other by their split grilles. In some products, such distinctive characteristics serve mainly to aid brand recognition. But in complex objects such as computers, they can also signal operational familiarity: a customer who knows how to use product A will be able to use product B.

To whatever degree Apple can be said to make products with a distinctive genetic code, they can also be said to have inherited most of their traits from a single parent: founder Steve Jobs. Jobs left the company in 1985 and didn't return until 1997. Nonetheless, according to many who have worked at Apple, sometimes in close proximity to Jobs, it was largely he who established the company's emphasis on industrial design. Indeed, some would say that he made design a higher priority than technology.

Mark Rolston bears the title of senior vice president of creative at Frog Design, a product-design and strategic-branding firm that worked closely with Apple from 1982 to 1988. (Rolston did not work directly on any projects with Apple.) The company's projects have ranged widely: retail display systems for Victoria's Secret; websites for Microsoft, Dell, and Yahoo; webcams for Logitech. In publicity pictures, Rolston sports a T-shirt and an indie-rock mop of shaggy blond hair that bespeak his years in Austin, TX.

Even in the early 1980s, Rolston says, "Jobs wanted to elevate Apple by using design." Jobs, he says, not only cared personally about design but saw that it could be a way to differentiate his company's products from the PCs of the day, which often looked little evolved from hobbyist boxes. Ken Campbell, a codesigner of the Apple Lisa, was quoted in Kunkel's AppleDesign as saying that Jobs wanted Apple to be what Olivetti was in the 1970s: "an undisputed leader in industrial design."

Through much of 1982 and into early 1983, Jobs searched for a sympathetic design partner; he finally found one in Hartmut Esslinger of Frog Design. Together, the two companies developed the "Snow White" design language that was meant to give Apple's products a coherent visual vocabulary, the appearance of being related.

Read more...

[Tech.Masti]

Thanks for the info

[nepcker]

Who Is Jonathan Ive?

Jony Ive is the one who Steve called to demonstrate how a call is made and about the phone features in the iPhone.

[aryayush]

Do you really think a lot of people on this forum have seen the Macworld 07 keynote?

[nepcker]

From what I've been seeing at this forum, the answer is unfortunately No.

I think that the keynote address should have been included at the Digit DVD. At least, people will get the right concept about the iPhone, and won't claim that the iPhone is not revolutionary in any ways. They'll also get to see a master presenter in action!

[aryayush]

LOL! Ha! Ha! Ha! ROFL!

Digit is either a very biased magazine or they simply cannot acknowledge that Macs are better than Windows because of their target demographic.

And you expect them to distribute the Macworld keynote! LOL!

[nepcker]

You are right, of course.

And the worst person at Digit is Agent001. He doesn't even know that Multi-Touch is patented! ("You can bet your last rupee that multi-touch will be copied by every last hardware manufacturer on earth" or something like that)

[aryayush]

Ah well, Microsoft is already out with an implementation of their own so I guess he wasn't too off the mark.

[Yamaraj]

Originally Posted by aryayush

...Macs are better than Windows...

Comparing apples and oranges? Your statement is also an obvious flamebait.
"X is better than Y" are always very subjective opinions, and others are not likely to agree with you always.

[MysticDews]

but say anything, Apple IS the best when it comes to design.

@aryayush, thanks for the info..

[gxsaurav]

John Carmack is god of gaming industry

Jonathan ive is god of Mac desigining industry. (Just cos he designed iMac G4)

[freshseasons]

Originally Posted by nepcker

From what I've been seeing at this forum, the answer is unfortunately No.

I think that the keynote address should have been included at the Digit DVD. At least, people will get the right concept about the iPhone, and won't claim that the iPhone is not revolutionary in any ways. They'll also get to see a master presenter in action!

Ya you are right. Digit should have included that.
How ever PC WORLD magazine did include in on their DVD.
Still some how i still feel iphone is not revolutionary but evolutionary.
All the Features on iphone are evolved from something that was already in use.I dont know may be its because i am already using most of the features on my Windows Mobile 6.
Will i buy an iphone ? Yes defiantly the day i its released from an US client and unlock it.
But i will probably gift it to my wife. It looks lovely but i dont think i can be comfortable with it .I still need the Sliding full QWERTY keyboard with hardware tactile feel.Never felt comfortable with my phones onboard touch screen keyboard.Ya even when i have downloaded iphone like software on it where the key actually come alive like rising to touch your fingers .
Anyways i liked its ring tone from that keynote address and right now using the same on my phone.
If anyone wants it here it is...
Just downgraded the quality to compress it due to Forum uploading restrictions.Enjoy

[aryayush]

Yeah, I use that ringtone on my phone too. It is pretty soothing at low volume. (But it is not the best ringtone for outdoor use. Then again, maybe it is just the crap speakers on my Nokia 6300.)

Originally Posted by freshseasons

How ever PC WORLD magazine did include in on their DVD.

Just a ten minutes highlights reel. Not satisfactory at all. (I have the whole thing in DVD-quality though so I don't really care. ) The WWDC 2007 will be something worth watching - Leopard and the iPhone (and hopefully new Macs with Multi-touch).

Originally Posted by freshseasons

Still some how i still feel iphone is not revolutionary but evolutionary.

But those features are packed into a much better user interface and I am ready to pay for a better user interface any day. I really want to use that Multi-touch screen, touch scrolling, pinch-and-zoom, Cover Flow, Safari... WOW!

[gxsaurav]

:Yawn: Company branded ringtones, they are so common when they ring in a Crowd.

Curtom Ringontes rulz

[iMav]

waoh this thread is filld by a mutual admiration society ...

coming to mr ive ... well the guy is a master mind ... the design of the hardware is the only thing i like about apple