Design Something.

Jonathan is a London born designer, who studied at Newcastle Polytechnic. Soon after the completion of his studies in 1985 he became a partner in the London based design consultancy Tangerine. But only three years later he made the massive leap of moving to San Francisco in America to join Apple’s design team. By 1998 Johnathan Ive was then appointed vice-president of industrial design at Apple, where he launches the original iMac, which sells 2 million units in its first year. He has since designed great works such as the G4 cube, G4 Powerbook, iBook and portable iPod. 2003 brought more success with a design museum “designer of the year” prize. With products continually being brought out iMac, Powerbook and iPod mini with the slim iMac coming in 2004. By 2005 Johnathan had risen to Senior Vice President at Apple, reporting directly to the CEO Steve Jobs himself.

Apple’s design team is regarded the world over as one of the best and Johnathan Ive himself has been recognized with several awards, with products being permanent collections in museums such as MOMA in New York and the Pompidou in Paris.

The iMac (1998)

The iMac is such a change of style for desktop computers and provided quite literally a burst of colour onto the scene of bland grey/white computers which you would have seen across the market. Of course using colour in the materials you are manufacturing for the computer, but it was the care and detail the designers and Jonathan Ive took in using these materials. In making them perfect and the iMac just catches your attention straight away. No only did the iMac have a great burst of colour it also is transparent giving the user an insight into inside the computer at the various components, care and attention was put into the internal components which were previous overlooked.

The iPod (2001)

The iPod came with the emergence of mp3 players and the mp3 file format taking over the use of bulky tape and CD players. The Sony Walkman was such an iconic piece of electronics that some would argue the iPod lends itself to some of the same stylings which made the Sony Walkman so successful. The iPod also later on upgraded itself with the click wheel and this was introduced with it being heavily influenced from users liking the feel and click of a record player volume control knob.

The iPod was completely different and burst onto the market as a small pocket sized electronic device which was able to store your whole CD collection! The challenge was the interface in making the device simple and intuitive. The product itself is sealed off, with no screws and the user has no access to the electronic components stored inside. The twin shot shell is complimented with the polished stainless steel shell, which looks so stylish and expensive. Even the ear buds have shifted the market of headphones to introduce colour, they were white matching the iPod’s design and sat comfortably in the ear.

The inspiration of a lot of Jonathan Ive’s work is often attributed to the work of Dieter Rams, German industrial designer of the Bauhaus movement. Dieter Rams was one of the most influential designers of the 20th century transforming the success of Braun with some simply iconic products. The iPod itself has a lot of the styling traits of his record player “Snow White’s coffin.”

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Article written by Jared Thompson

Follow Jared (@Jthompsondesign) on twitter!

Resources:

• Design Museum article