February 27th, 2007
Kidhaven Press are to publish what I believe to be the first book devoted to Jony Ive, titled “Jonathan Ive: Designer of the iPod”.
Kidhaven are a children’s book publisher and the title will be part of their “innovators” series. The book will be written by Kris Hirschmann.
Here is the table of contents:
- Contents
- Introduction: Success by Design
- Chapter 1: A Developing Talent
- Chapter 2: Breakthrough
- Chapter 3: Changing the Computing World
- Chapter 4: The iPod Revolution
- Notes
- Glossary
- For Further Exploration
- About the Author
“Jonathan Ive: Designer of the iPod” will be released this June, RRP $24.95.
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February 25th, 2007
The Observer have featured Jonathan in their article “The 50 men who really understand women” (scroll down to number 30).
Nestled in amongst John Galliano and Lucian Freud, the short section credits Jonathan Ive with feminising technology with the design of the iMac and iBook.
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February 15th, 2007
Credit Jonathan Ive, design guru for Apple; he has an uncanny skill for imparting a device with simplicity, distinction and inevitability. He could probably design a better triangle, and when he was done you’d realize that three sides were one side too many.
James Lileks, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Eschewing either a keyboard or a stylus, it provides a context-related soft interface both driven and presented via the touchscreen … I want one.
Seb Janacek, silicon.com
The minimalist styling of the iPhone — it has only one button on its front — is the signature of Jonathan Ive, the award-winning Brit who is Apple’s senior vice-president of design.
The look and feel of the device — it is shaped like a chocolate bar and is only 11.6mm thick — is every bit as impressive and compelling as Apple’s fans have come to expect.
As a number of people noted, it is like something out of Tom Cruise’s science-fiction film Minority Report, which is set in 2054.
Paul Durman, The Times
Mac fans are excited about the fact that Apple has addressed the need to improve user experience while retaining the sleek design most have come to expect as standard from Apple’s head of design Jonathan Ive.
Jane Wakefield, BBC News
The iPhone is a typical piece of Ive design: an austere, abstract, platonic-looking form that somehow also manages to feel warm and organic and ergonomic.
Lev Grossman, Time
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February 15th, 2007
The Sun has published a feature on Jonathan Ive with the inspired title “Chingford boy is Mr Ive-pod”.
For those that don’t know it, The Sun it is infamous in the UK as a low-brow tabloid that mixes celebrity gossip and soft porn with pub politics.
Yet it can now claim Jonathan Ive as an avid reader, according to the article which states “the design genius displays his good taste by regularly reading The Sun in California”.
I sincerely hope this is a) a joke or b) Jonathan being ironic.
While the article shares little else new about Jonathan its still fun to read about our Jony in monosyllabic van-driver speak; describing him as “stickler for detail” and explaining that his status as a super-designer was “rubber-stamped” by his entry in Who’s Who.
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January 10th, 2007
While the whole world pours over iPhone rumours, specifications and comment in an orgy of technolust, Lev Grossman over at Time has managed to speak to the man who designed the product. Here are some choice extracts:
“Your phone’s got feet on,” he says, not unkindly. “Why would anybody put feet on a phone?” Ive has the answer, of course: “It raises the speaker on the back off the table. But the right solution is to put the speaker in the right place in the first place. That’s why our speaker isn’t on the bottom, so you can have it on the table, and you don’t need feet.” Sure enough, no feet toe the iPhone’s smooth lines.
“I think there’s almost a belligerence—people are frustrated with their manufactured environment,” says Ive. “We tend to assume the problem is with us, and not with the products we’re trying to use.”
Read the full article here
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January 10th, 2007
Confirming Jonathan’s close involvement in the iPhone project, he participated in the first ever public phone call made with the iPhone during Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote today.
Jobs firstly brought up Jonathan’s profile in the iPhone address book (listed under “Jony Ive” — and inadvently exposing his phone numbers and email address!) before initiating the call. The keynote video then shows Jonathan receiving the call in the Macworld audience and chatting with Steve.
Asked by Jobs if he had anything to say about the new revolutionary product, Ive responded “It’s not too shabby is it?” demonstrating his trademark modesty and provoking laughter from the audience.
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January 10th, 2007
Two and half years and 200 patents later, the long-rumoured, heavily-anticipated iPhone is reality.
Watching the keynote you really get the feeling this is Jonathan’s baby. Doing away with fixed physical buttons to use an entirely touch-driven interface is not only revolutionary and daring for such a complex device, but immediately reveals itself as the obvious and logical solution.
And the only physical control on the front of the iPhone — the solitary “home” button — is classic Jonathan Ive: distilling everything into one zen-like control that acts as the anchor to the entire system, providing familiarity and a sense of safety to the user.
Indeed the design of the iPhone demonstrates a sense of humour in the Apple design team and an open challenge to the Nokias and Motorolas of the world. Who else would think or dare to design a smartphone — a product typically littered with countless buttons, flip-out keyboards and volume dials — with no buttons whatsoever — and succeed?
On a technical level the Apple iPhone also triumphs. The world’s thinnest smartphone packing the highest resolution display ever shipped on a mobile device, and a vast list of internal components including a proximity sensor, an ambient light sensor and an accelerometer.
Of course these hi-tech components allow usability problems to be overcome, but it is all delivered with such simplicity. How do you view the a landscape image or video? Turn the phone to the side. How do you make an image bigger? Move your fingers apart. How do you make it smaller again? Move your fingers together.
The only negative reaction I have seen to the iPhone so far concern the lack of 3G connectivity, the locking to the Cingular network and the price, all of which may affect its success.
However on on a design level this is another Jonathan Ive masterpiece, on a level with the iPod and iMac. Go Jony!
AppleInsider have high-resolution photos of the iPhone on display at MacWorld.
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January 5th, 2007
The Guardian has an extensive and well-researched profile of Jonathan that uncovers much new information about the man they describe as “the most important British designer of our time”.
In examining Jonathan’s life the article sheds new light on everything from his university days and family life, revealing several new tidbits of information through interviews with people he has worked with along the way:
- Known only because Jonathan disassembled one, The Apple iBook hides a secret toolkit beneath its polycarbonate casing for servicing.
- Adding to Jonathan’s air of mystery, Apple apparently does not know Jonathan’s exact date of birth (!) and it could not be printed in his Who’s Who entry.
- Jonathan lives in the Twin Peaks district of San Francisco. His wife Heather is a historian.
- Ive achieved first class honours in his Industrial Design degreee. His final year project was the creation of a pebble-shaped device to replace cash and credit cards. Describing his ability at the time his tutor Bob Young said: “It is a unique capacity that he has. You see his kind of talent probably once in a lifetime of teaching students,”
- Before joining Apple Jonathan was known for designing toilets for Ideal Standard. According to the article he sought inspiration from marine biology books and also designed VCRs. Martin Darbyshire, chief exec of Tangerine, says of the work he did there: “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”.
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January 3rd, 2007
Jonathan’s inevitable march into popular culture continues today with his inclusion into Who’s Who, “Britain’s biographical record of the great and good”.
A stuffy-sounding affair, a person’s invitation to appear in Who’s Who is apparently based on “distinction and influence”, either because “their prominence is inherited, or depending on office, or the result of ability which singles them out from their fellows”. I think we’re talking about the latter condition in this case.
Don’t expect a scan of the profile anytime soon though - Who’s Who costs £145 and I’d much rather spend that on a MacBook.
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September 24th, 2006
Signal vs. Noise discovers that the concept for the iMac G5 / iMac Core Duo may have come from a speaker designed by Dieter Rams in 1960.
While the visual similarity of the two products is surely coincidental, quotes from Rams reveal a parity with the design ethos of Jonathan Ive:
“I believe designers should eliminate the unnecessary. That means eliminating everything that is modish because this kind of thing is only short-lived”
Links:
Dieter Rams: “Less, but better” at Signal vs. Noise
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