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Jonathan Ive to be knighted
Posted by Patrick Burgoyne, 31 December 2011, 11:44 Permalink Comments (32)
Apple's designer Jonathan Ive is to receive a knighthood in the New Year's Honours List. Ive has said that he is "both humbled and sincerely grateful" for the award.
Apple's senior vice president, industrial design, will receive the KBE for "services to design and enterprise". He had previously received the CBE.
Ive joined Apple in 1992, becoming head of industrial design in 1998, the year in which the original iMac (below) was launched. Ive's team went on to design the iPod, iPhone and iPad - a succession of beautiful, seductive products that are as intuitive to use as they are attractive to look at. But, at a time when designers are feeling grossly undervalued, it is to be hoped that Ive's knighthood will bring recognition for perhaps a more enduring contribution to his field – in demonstrating the importance of design to the success of business, or, indeed, any organisation.
That importance wasn't always understood, even at Apple. Before Steve Jobs' return to the company he had founded in 1996, Ive had been feeling frustrated. According to Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs, in the period that Jobs was away from the company, engineers would hand over the guts of a machine and expect the designers just to put it all in a box. Under Jobs, design became integral to the entire process of product development.
Certainly Ive enjoyed an extremely close working relationship with Jobs. The latter is quoted as saying "If I had a spiritual partner at Apple, it's Jony". It's remarkable just how much time Jobs and Ive apparently spent together: Isaacson says they would have lunch most days that Jobs was in the office and Jobs would routinely spend afternoons in Ive's studio studying models and concepts.
But it was not all sweetness and light: according to Isaacson, Ive "got upset with Jobs for taking too much credit" for some ideas. "It hurts when he takes credit for one of my designs," Isaacson quotes Ive as saying.
Of course, others have accused Ive of borrowing from Dieter Rams. For his part, Ive has always acknowledged his admiration for Rams and his ability to produce consistent, considered and beautiful products. Writing for the Telegraph last year, Rams noted one key similarity between them - that both enjoyed very close relationships with the heads of the businesses they worked for. "At Braun I always reported to Erwin and Artur Braun or, after their departure, the chairman of the board. It is the same in my relationship with the furniture manufacturer, Vitsoe, where I worked closely with the founder Niels Vitsoe and, since his death, Mark Adams," Rams said.
The key question now is whether Ive will enjoy the same relationship with Apple's new CEO Tim Cook as he did with Jobs. Some had predicted that Ive would step up to take on Jobs' mantle at Apple himself instead of Cook. There were even (unsubstantiated) rumours in the UK press earlier in the year that Ive was considering returning to the UK. Ive's knighthood comes at an intriguing time for both himself and the company he has done so much for.
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32 Comments
im not being funny but why on earth is this guy revered.. heres a gray box make it better.. oh my .. your amazing. Dont think so. If you gave the same project to half a dozen art students back in the day then they would have come up with stuff just as good.. end of
2012-01-02 11:58:00
Well deserved, and there's no shame in borrowing from Dieter Rams!
2012-01-02 14:41:26
He looks happy about it.
2012-01-02 22:11:14
Too right!
2012-01-03 08:37:35
Sam – how strange that it is so easy yet nobody else is designing 'grey boxes' as well as, or better than, Ive and Apple.
2012-01-03 14:08:36
Quote: "If you gave the same project to half a dozen art students back in the day then they would have come up with stuff just as good..."
But they didn't.
2012-01-03 14:09:57
Neil nailed it. There is nothing on the market to rival the sheer elegance and evolution of Apple's product design. The man has the magic touch.
I think it's wonderful that design is being recognised on the list through such a worthy recipient.
2012-01-03 14:34:15
@Sam
How did you even end up here?
And please tell us, if it's so easy designing grey boxes why every technology manufacturer under the sun works round the clock imitating Apple and never improving on their design. Please show me one of these fantastic grey boxes designed by art students, the world is on the edge of its seat.
The best design should be subtle, it should appear effortless; but that doesn't mean it is. Even art students know that, and they don't even study design, or design things, because they're artists; not designers (get it yet?).
2012-01-03 15:15:18
The real vision belonged to Steve Jobs, who hired a young RCA graduate to give Macs a new look, because he realised it was about time as until then computers looked like beige boxy objects.
But I tend to agree with those who think that many other freshly graduated designers would have had an easy ride to change for good the way computers looked, as the starting point was so bad anybody could have done a good job.
I do believe Ive's success is 75% down to amazingly good luck.
2012-01-03 15:16:32
Sam you clearly don't have even the remotest grasp of product design, and whilst you are entitled to your opinion, it might be better to learn something about it before making yourself sound dumb!
2012-01-03 15:24:49
Sam, agree entirely. Ive and Jobs have done absolutely nothing to collectively change the face of product and industrial design. So overrated aren't they?
2012-01-03 15:30:40
Not sure about the "trickle down" benefits to the wider world of design: if there are businesses and organisations that don't yet understand the importance of design through Ive's work a knighthood isn't really going to help.
Good news though, and very much deserved.
2012-01-03 15:33:31
Sams fishing. Dont humour him.
2012-01-03 16:21:32
[deleted by moderator]
2012-01-03 16:23:00
Mac, isn't the point that rather than get so caught up in design for design's sake and trying to change product and industrial design they changed personal computing, then the music industry then the mobile phone industry. Quite a set of achievements for a grey-box fetishist.
Good design and management change the industries they're applied to rather than shine as entities in themselves.
Congratulations Sir Jonathan!
2012-01-03 16:27:49
A right place - right time guy, if ever there was one.
I've always believed him to be otherwise average, and this 'changes nothing' to paraphrase the advertising campaigns of his American employers.
And how has he helped Britain? He went to California and lined the pockets of others, as well as his own.
And so pathetic that the UK establishment is jumping on the iTrain following Jobs death.
Glad to see there are others who can see through this, as much as we could his plastic tosh.
2012-01-03 16:32:00
Mac,
' Ive and Jobs have done absolutely nothing to collectively change the face of product and industrial design.'
What ARE you talking about? Have you really thought about what you've said?
They revolutionised the MP3 player over and over again. They created the first all-in-one computer with the iMac. They reinvented the mouse. They revolutionised the phone. They've used new materials in just about everything they have done... I could go on. AND they've made products infinitely easier to use.
Why don't you ask Samsung if Apple have changed product design? They'll know!
2012-01-03 17:06:27
I think he deserves a knighthood.
Salma Hayek not so much.
2012-01-03 17:21:40
Great to see a designer recognised in this way.
2012-01-03 18:13:31
Johnathan Ive's in my opinion created a wonderful design, but I would give the award to who ever made the actual casing to the macs. I had my macbook pro runned over 3 times one day and it still lives and works. I had to replaced the screen, but still, I thought I was going to to have to get a whole new mac.
2012-01-03 18:16:21
Michael
I think Mac was introducing a note of sarcasm in response to Sam's disingenuous comments.
2012-01-03 19:19:10
Whilst I was studying Graphic design at college. We used macs and pc's. I really couldn't of cared less which I used. They both did the job (at snails pace), so I always argued with my tutor that in a few years time apple would be on it's way out as the more expensive choice. Then a few months later I walked into the computer room to be welcomed by an array of brand new, vibrantly coloured, amazingly striking monitors. I was looking at the 1st i-macs. So I said to my tutor, if they carry on producing machines that look like this then they'll still have a market and I'll eat my words. They did! The i-pod was then released which for me was the product that primarily saved apple and also started it's rise to becoming one of the most desirable and successful companies in the world. So for me Jonathan Ive was the guy that saved Apple Ass! Bravo
2012-01-03 19:47:37
About time!
The great thing about Apple designs - of which fellow Brit Ives has been so very integral to - is that it is so simple- it's about both style AND substance.
2012-01-03 19:53:12
@paul:
"Glad to see there are others who can see through this, as much as we could his plastic tosh."
Yes, I too wish people still made MP3 players and mobile phones out of wood in the traditional manner. It's a dying craft.
2012-01-03 23:34:04
@Sam: I despise Apple for everything they stand for. Well, everything except design. And if 27 years of existence has taught me anything, it is that subtlety is the most difficult thing in the world to achieve.
Apple have brought elegance to an industry that was dying for some. Respect, for that.
2012-01-04 08:40:36
I wonder if Apple consider people who are daft enough to get their laptop run over (not just once, but three times on the same day) during the design process.
2012-01-04 08:53:32
@James No more than other business line laptop designers. Thinkpads in particular are famous for being built like tanks. I think the issue rather is that computer lines targeted at 'consumers' are cheap, low-quality cobbled-together junk. Being able to withstand a beating should be the norm among tech products, alas, building to last seems like a lost art.
2012-01-04 16:09:34
Almost everyday I still sit and marvel at the design of my Apple desktop keyboard (silver version with 2 hidden USB ports in the raised bottom). This is exceptional design and only 1 tiny piece of the Apple portfolio...
2012-01-04 16:17:21
Michael
I think Mac was introducing a note of sarcasm in response to Sam's disingenuous comments.
2012-01-05 09:19:41
Congratulations Jonathan!
2012-01-05 09:39:28
Apple's portfolio of design is amazing and groundbreaking... others tend to follow it. It's good to see a young British designer get such recognition. Well done.
2012-01-05 11:30:58
That picture is a bit menacing...
2012-01-07 21:52:19
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