Daniel Hruska Jony Ive is today's designer superstar. The style of his work sets today's trends in consumer electronics, just like the once legendary Dieter Rams from Braun. What was the life path of a British native to one of the leading positions in the American company Apple?
The birth of a genius
Jony Ive received his primary education at a private school in Chingford, the same school where David Beckham, another famous Brit living in America, also graduated. Ive was born here in 1967 but his family moved from Essex to Staffordshire in the early 80s when his father changed jobs. Instead of a design and technology teacher, he became a school inspector. Jony inherited his design skills from his father, who was a trained silversmith. As Ive himself says, around the age of 14 he knew he was interested in "drawing and making things".
His talent was already noticed by teachers at Walton High School. Here Ive also met his future wife, Heather Pegg, who was a grade below and also the child of the local school superintendent. They married in 1987. Back then, you might have met him as a dark-haired, chubby, plain teenager. He was involved in rugby and the band Whitraven, where he was a drummer. His musical role models included Pink Floyd. As a rugby player, he earned the nickname "gentle giant". He played as a pillar and was popular among his teammates because he was reliable and very modest.
Because of his passion for cars at the time, Ive originally started attending St. Martin's School of Art in London. Later, however, he focused on industrial design, which was only an imaginary step towards Newcastle Polytechnic. Already at that time, his conscientiousness was evident. His creations were never good enough for him and he was always looking for ways to make his work even better. He also first discovered the magic of Macintosh computers in college. He was enchanted by their innovative design, which was different from other PCs.
As a student, Johnatan was very perceptive and hardworking. That's what one of the professors there said about him. After all, Ive is still in contact as an extern with Northumbria University, under which Newcastle Polytechnic now falls.
Colleague and designer Sir James Dyson leans towards Ive's user-first approach. However, he also points to the fact that Britain has lost one of its talents. According to him, design and engineering in Britain have very deep roots. "Although we have raised several brilliant designers here, we also need to retain them. Then we could show our design to the whole world," he adds.
The reason for his departure to the United States was, in part, a certain disagreement with partner Clive Grinyer at Tangerine. It was the first place after graduating from Newcastle Polytechnic. It all started after his design presentation for a bathroom accessories company. "We lost a lot of talent," says Grinyer. "We even started our own company, Tangerine, just to work with Jony."
Tangerine was to win a contract to design a toilet. Jony did a great presentation. He performed it for a client with a clown pom pom because it was Red Nose Day. He then stood up and tore up Jony's proposal. At that moment, the company lost Jony Ive.
After school, Ive founded Tangerine with three friends. Among the firm's clients was Apple, and Ive's frequent visits there offered him a back door. He spent several days in California during the winter. Then, in 1992, he got a better offer at Apple and never returned to Tangerine. Four years later, Ive became head of the entire design department. The Cupertino company realized that Ive was exactly what they were looking for. His way of thinking completely aligned with Apple's philosophy. The work there is just as hard as Ive is used to. Working at Apple is not a walk in the park. In the first years of his work, Ive was certainly not one of the most important figures in the company, and he certainly did not become a design guru overnight. During twenty years, however, he obtained almost 600 patents and industrial designs.
Now Ive lives with his wife and twin boys on a hill in San Francisco, not far from the Infinite Loop. All he has to do is get into his Bentley Brooklands and in no time he is in his workshop at Apple.
A career at Apple
Ivo's time at Apple didn't start off very well. The company lured him to California with the promise of a bright tomorrow. At that time, however, the company was slowly but surely beginning to sink. Ive ended up in his basement office. He churned out one strange creation after another, the workspace overflowing with prototypes. None of them were ever made and no one even cared about his work. He was very frustrated. Jony spent his first three years designing Newton PDA and printers' drawers.
The design team was even forced to give up the Cray computer that was being used for modeling and simulating the new prototypes. Even the designs that began to be produced were received lukewarmly. Ive's Twentieth Anniversary Mac was one of the first computers to come with flat LCD panels. However, its appearance seemed somewhat bent, moreover, for a significantly overpriced price. This computer originally cost $9, but by the time it was pulled from the shelves, its price had dropped to $000.
[do action=”quote”]He constantly examined his creations and when he discovered a deficiency, he was excited, because only at that moment, according to him, could he discover something new.[/do]
At the time, Ive was already considering returning to his native England. But luck was on his side. In 1997, after twelve years of separation from his child, Steve Jobs returned to the company. He carried out a thorough purge in the form of ending the production of most of the products of the time and also part of the employees. Later, Jobs toured the design department, which was then located across the street from the main campus.
When Jobs walked in, he looked at all of Ive's amazing prototypes and said, “My God, what do we have here?” Jobs immediately moved the designers from the dark basement to the main campus, investing a fortune in state-of-the-art rapid prototyping equipment. He also increased security by cutting off the design studio from other departments to prevent leaks about upcoming products. The designers also got their own kitchen, because they would surely have the urge to talk about their work in the canteen. Jobs spent most of his time in this "development lab" in the constant process of testing.
At the same time, Jobs first considered hiring an Italian car designer - Gioretto Giugiaro - to refresh the company. In the end, however, he decided on the already employed Jony. These two men eventually became very close friends, Jobs also had the greatest influence on Jony of the people around him.
Ive subsequently resisted the pressure, refused to hire more designers, and continued his experiments. He constantly tried to find possible errors in them. He constantly examined his creations, and when he discovered some deficiency, he was excited, because only at that moment, according to his words, could he discover something new. However, not all of his work was flawless. Even a master carpenter sometimes cuts himself, like Ive s G4 Cube. The latter was infamously withdrawn from sale because customers were unwilling to pay extra for the design.
Nowadays, around a dozen other designers work inside Ivo's workshop, chosen by Apple's chief designer himself. Music selected by DJ Jon Digweed plays in the background on a quality audio system. However, at the heart of the entire design process is a completely different piece of technology, namely state-of-the-art 3D prototyping machines. They are able to churn out models of future Apple devices on a daily basis, which may one day rank among the current icons of Cupertino society. We could describe Ivo's workshop as a kind of sanctuary inside Apple. It is here that new products take their final shape. The emphasis here is on every detail – the tables are bare aluminum sheets joined together to form the familiar curves of iconic products such as the MacBook Air.
Even the smallest detail is addressed in the products themselves. Designers are literally obsessed with each product. With a joint effort, they remove redundant components and solve even the smallest details – such as LED indicators. Ive once spent months on top of just the iMac stand. He was looking for a kind of organic perfection, which he finally found in sunflowers. The final design was a combination of polished metal with expensive laser surface treatment, which gave rise to a very elegant "stem", which, however, hardly anyone will notice in the final product.
Understandably, Ive also designed a lot of crazy prototypes that never left his workshop. Even these creations nevertheless help him in designing new products. It works according to the method of the evolution process, that is, what fails immediately goes into the trash, and it starts from the beginning. Therefore, it was usual that there were many prototypes that were being worked on scattered throughout the workshop. At the same time, these were mostly experiments with materials for which even the world was not yet ready. This is also why the design team was often secretive even within the company.
Ive rarely appears in public, rarely gives interviews. When he does speak somewhere, his words usually turn to his beloved field – design. Ive admits that seeing someone with white balls in their ears makes him happy. However, he admits that he constantly wonders whether Apple's iconic headphones could have been made even better.
iMac
After restructuring in 1997, Ive was able to bring his first major product to the world - the iMac - in a new environment. The rounded and semi-transparent computer caused a minor revolution in the market, which had only known a similar machine until now. Ive spent hours in the candy factory just to get inspiration for the individual color variants that would signal to the world that the iMac is not just for work, but also for fun. Although users were able to fall in love with the iMac at first sight, this desktop computer did not meet Jobs' expectations in terms of perfection. The transparent mouse looked strange and the new USB interface caused problems.
However, Jony soon understood Jobs' vision and began to create products as the late visionary wanted them last fall. The proof was the iPod music player, which saw the light of day in 2001. It was this device that was a clash of Ive's designs and Jobs' requirements in the form of a neat and minimalist design.
The iPod and the emerging post-PC era
From the iPod, Ive created a whole that felt fresh and was easy to control. He went to great lengths to understand what the technology had to offer and then used all of his design know-how to highlight it. Simplifying and then exaggerating is the key to success in media. This is exactly what Ive creates with Apple products. They make it clear what their true purpose is in its purest form.
Not all of the success can be attributed to Jony's precise and alluring design alone. Yet such a fortune of society could not have been plucked without him, his feeling and taste. Today, many people have forgotten this fact, but MP3 audio compression was there even before the iPod was introduced in 2001. The problem, however, was that the players of that time were about as attractive as car batteries. They were just as convenient to carry.
[do action=”quote”]The iPod Nano scratched easily because Ive believed that the protective coating would harm the purity of its design.[/do]
Ive and Apple later moved the iPod to other smaller and more colorful versions, eventually adding video and games. With the advent of the iPhone in 2007, they created a whole new market for countless applications for these smartphones. The interesting thing about iDevices is that the customer is willing to pay for perfect design. Apple's current earnings prove it. Ive's simple style can turn some plastic and metal into gold.
However, not all of Ivo's design decisions were beneficial. For example, the iPod nano scratched easily because Ive believed that a protective coating would harm the purity of its design. A significantly bigger problem occurred in the case of the iPhone 4, which eventually resulted in the so-called "Antennagate". When designing the iPhone, Ive's ideas ran into the basic laws of nature - metal is not the most suitable material for close antenna placement, electromagnetic waves do not pass through a metal surface.
The original iPhone had a plastic strip on the bottom edge, but Ive felt that this detracted from the integrity of the design and wanted an aluminum strip around the entire perimeter. That didn't work, so Ive designed an iPhone with a steel band. Steel is a good structural support, looks elegant and serves as part of the antenna. But in order for the steel strip to be part of the antenna, it would have to have a small gap in it. However, if a person covers it with a finger or palm, there will be some signal loss.
Engineers designed a clear coating to partially prevent this. But Ive again felt that this would adversely affect the specific appearance of the polished metal. Even Steve Jobs felt that engineers were exaggerating the problem because of this problem. In order to eliminate the given problem, Apple called an extraordinary press conference, where he announced that the affected users will receive the case for free.
The Fall and Rise of Apple
In roughly 20 years, the majority of which Jony Ive already worked at the company, sales of Apple products rose more than tenfold. In 1992, Apple Computer's profit was 530 million US dollars for selling a wide range of mediocre to insignificant products in the color of mushroom soup. By designing the first iMac in 1998 and its no less likable successors, the iPod, iPhone and iPad, he helped return Apple to prominence as one of the world's most valuable companies, with a turnover higher than that of Google and Microsoft. In 2010 it was already 14 billion dollars and the following year even more. Customers are willing to wait tens of hours in endless lines just to buy an Apple device.
Stocks on the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street (NASDAQ) are currently worth almost $550 billion. If we were to compile a list of the most valuable companies in the world, Apple would be at the very top. He was able to overtake even such a colossus as Exxon Mobil, which is currently in second place, by more than 160 billion dollars. Just for the sake of interest - the companies Exxon and Mobil were founded in 1882 and 1911, Apple only in 1976. Thanks to the high value of the shares, Jony Ive will earn 500 million crowns as a shareholder just for them.
Ive is invaluable to Apple. The last decade belonged to him. His design for the Californian company has revolutionized every industry – from music and television, to mobile devices, to laptops and desktops. Today, after the untimely death of Steve Jobs, Ive has an even more important role at Apple. Although Tim Cook is an excellent boss of the entire company, he does not share the passion for design that Steve Jobs does. Ive is all the more important to Apple because we could consider him the most valuable and successful designer today.
Obsession materials
Not many people in the Western Hemisphere have had the opportunity to see the making of Japanese samurai swords. The whole process is considered sacred in Japan and at the same time it is one of the few traditional arts that has not yet been affected by today's science and technology. Japanese blacksmiths work at night to better judge the correct temperature of the steel, while their forging, melting and tempering produce the most precise blades ever. The lengthy and laborious process pushes the steel to its own physical limits - exactly what Jonathan Ive wanted to see with his own eyes. Ive is constantly acquiring knowledge that would allow him to produce the thinnest electronic devices in the world. Few will be surprised that he is willing to spend 14 hours on a plane to meet one of the most respected smiths of traditional Japanese swords - the katana - in Japan.
[do action=”quote”]If you understand how something is made, you know absolutely everything about it.[/do]
Ive is known for his obsession with a literal alchemical approach to design. He also constantly strives to push working with metals to their limit. A year ago, Apple introduced its then-latest piece of technology, the iPad 2. Ive and his team made it over and over, in this case cutting metal and silicon, until it was a third thinner and less than 100 grams lighter than the previous generation.
"With the MacBook Air, in terms of metallurgy, I've gone as far with aluminum as the molecules will allow us to go," says Ive. When he talks about the extremes of stainless steel, he does so with a passion that colors his relationship with design. The obsession with materials and reaching their "local maximum," as Ive calls the limit, gives Apple products their distinctive look.
“If you understand how something is made, you know absolutely everything about it,” explains Ive. When Steve Jobs decided he didn't like visible screw heads, his engineering skills and a touch of genius found a way to avoid them: Apple uses magnets to hold components together. As much as Jony Ive can love in design, he can also damn - for example, he heartily hates self-serving design and calls it "despotic".
Personality
Ive is not one of those designers who often benefits from superficiality and press statements. He prefers to devote himself to his profession and is not particularly interested in public attention. This is exactly what characterizes his personality – his mind is focused in the workshop, not in the artist's studio.
With Jony, it is difficult to judge where the engineering ends and the design itself begins in the production of the product. It is a continuous process. He keeps thinking over and over about what the product should be and then takes an interest in its realization. This is exactly what Ive calls "going above and beyond the call of duty."
Robert Brunner, the person who hired Ive to Apple and former head of the company's design, claims about him that "Ive is certainly one of the most influential designers of consumer electronics today. He is a designer of consumer products in every way, especially in terms of rounded shapes, details, finesse and materials, and how he can combine all these elements and push them through to the production itself.” Ive makes a very balanced impression on the people around him. Although he looks more like a club bouncer with his muscular exterior, people who know him say he is the kindest and most polite person they have ever had the honor of meeting.
iSir
In December 2011, Jonathan Ive was knighted for "services to design and business". However, the promotion to knighthood did not take place until May of this year. Princess Anne performed the ceremony at Buckingham Palace. Ive described the honor as: "absolutely thrilling" and added that it makes him "both humbled and immensely grateful."
Very nice article, thanks for it!
Perfect. Thanks for the article. :)
Very nice article. :)
Nice article. Just a shame about the typos. There really are a lot of them this time. :-/
Great reading, thank you
Tip for Jony: make the headphones a little smaller, they don't fit in my ears :-)
A tip for you: buy another one.
Great article. Thanks.
I'm also joining, very nice article, I would like more of this kind ;)
From scratch to stardom easily and quickly. Great article, thanks.
I wouldn't say it was an easy and quick journey.
Tears come to one's eyes. :-) The world is wonderful, thanks to people like Ive.