Designer Response Short 1

Jonathan "Jony" Ive was born in February 1967 in Chingford, London, England. He lives in the Twin Peaks area of San Fransisco. He is married to a historian named Heather and is the father of twins. He is an English designer and Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple Inc. He has headed the industrial team responsible for most of the companies significant hardware products. Ives is the principal designer of the iMac, titanium and aluminum PowerBook G4, MacBook, unibody MacBook Pro, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. He attended Northumbria University for Industrial Design. He worked shortly for a London design agency known as Tangerine designing toilets before moving to the United States to pursue a career at Apple. He gained his current job title upon the return of Steve Job to Apple in 1997. Jobs saw the immense potential that Ives possessed and they had very similar visions for the future of the company and its products. He has helped turn Apple into the second biggest company in the world, with a higher turnover than Google or Microsoft. His work is heavily influenced by the work of the 1960s German designer Dieter Rams, whose shapes and forms of Braun's home electronics line are visible in today's Apple products. His design approach is minimalist, emphasizing small but important details. This can be seen in all of Apple's products. Their signatures include white earphones, and white or silver laptops, while other companies emphasize colors and intricate designs. One of the most shocking designs is the iPod shuffle because of its extreme simplicity in design. Jony's work is considered by his critics as among the best in industrial design. His team's products have repeatedly won awards such as the Industrial Designers Society of America's Industrial Excellence Award. He was also named by The Sunday Times as one of Britain's most influential expatriates. In 2003, Ive was named designer of the year by the Design Museum London and awarded the title of Royal Designer for Industry by The Royal Society of Arts. Although Jonathan Ive is an essential part of Apple and its success today, there can only be one face of Apple (Steve Jobs) which is why he is relatively unknown in the world at large. Also the design team for Apple is kept relatively isolated, having a lab separate from Apple's main campus with extensive security in an effort to keep designers from leaking any details. 
Many years of Apple products which Jony Ive and a team of designers created


Jony Ive surrounded by his creations


Apple CEO Steve Jobs makes an appearance during the launch of the iPad 2

Works Cited

Elmer-DeWitt, Phillip. "How Britain Lost Apple's Jony Ive - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech." Fortune Tech. CNN Money, 21 Mar. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. <http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/21/how-britain-lost-apples-jony-ive/>.

"Jonathan Ive." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, 13 Apr. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive>.

Waugh, Rob. "Apple's Jonathan Ive: How Did a British Polytechnic Graduate Become Its Design Genius? | Mail Online." Home | Mail Online. Associated Newspapers Ltd, 20 Mar. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1367481/Apples-Jonathan-Ive-How-did-British-polytechnic-graduate-design-genius.html>.

Yarow, Jay. "What It's Like Inside Apple Design God Jony Ive's Secret Lab." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 21 Mar. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. <http://www.businessinsider.com/jony-ive-lab-2011-3>.