Jonathan Ive, The “iFather”
Cats: School, Tech|Here is a paper I wrote for my Interface Design class. I thought I’d share:
Jonathan Ive is one of the most noted and influential industrial designers of the past two decades. His work as senior vice president of industrial design for Apple, Inc. has garnered him praise and recognition from as disparate sources as the Queen of England and the Design Museum (Sample). He will forever be known as the designer responsible for making personal computers look cool, because of his dedication to simplicity of design. Along with computers, Ive has changed the industry through his use of color, sleek lines, and integration of all hardware and software components.
Jonathan Ive came to Apple in 1992, but his claim to design fame arose after CEO Steve Jobs returned and the company produced Ive’s revolutionary iMac design sporting candy colors (ibid). He followed up that overwhelming success with the portable iBook, and later redesigned the entire product line again and again, to immense critical and public accolade. His design team has created innovative products that were before their time, like the ill-fated Newton, and game-changers like the iPod.
All of this almost never came to be. When Jobs arrived back on the scene in 1997, the company and its products were experiencing hard times. As BusinessWeek reflects on that time, the company’s offerings had begun “to look the same as everyone else’s,” and Jobs was in the market for a new head designer, until he gave Ive another look (Burrows). Usability guru Donald A. Norman, who was one of the ones let go at that time, recalls, “Jobs said: ‘This is the direction we’re going,’ and he unleashed Jonathan to make it happen” (Burrows). Thankfully for Apple and the design world, Jobs was right.
One of Ive’s first changes at Apple was replacing the drab appearance of products with a vibrant color scheme that set the company apart from competitors. Bondi Blue became something of a household name, at least within the industry, and Apple followed up that iMac accent color with a host of other jellybean hues. “Sorry, no beige” became Ive’s motto, and clearly the focus on color has continued through the current rainbow of iPod Nanos (Frost).
Since Ive’s coronation by Jobs, another notable design change has been the sleek appearance of Apple’s devices. The original iMac’s all-in-one design had tremendous appeal, and the product line kept improving from there. Later iterations of the iMac evolved through a desk-lamp-shaped base and screen to just the screen, hiding the processor and drives just behind a narrow-bezeled display. The drive to ‘sexy,’ cool-looking hardware has also been evident in Apple’s products since 1998. From the original iMac’s translucent plastic to the iPhone 3G’s glossy black glass touchscreen and stainless steel case, Ive’s team has consistently produced the kinds of devices that other companies emulate.
The iPod line has been immensely successful, in part due to the ‘sexy’ look and feel of the device which, again, continues to improve through the current iPhone, iPod Touch and Nano handhelds. However, the portable media player’s most appealing design feature is the seamless integration between the hardware and software interface. The iPod would be nothing without its ability to sync with the online iTunes Music Store, but the innovative click-wheel design removes much of the user frustration experienced with other media players (Burrows). According to Burrows in BusinessWeek, it is this integration that allows Apple to stand out in a market of cookie-cutter hardware that may or may not fully be supported by the software that runs on it. “What really sets Apple’s products apart is the ‘fit and finish,’” says Burrows, “the ultimate impression that results from thousands of tiny decisions that go into a product’s development” (ibid).
Jonathan Ive has stated in his recent interview with The Independent that he takes this theory of integration very seriously, and tries to focus his team on that mindset more above all:
’We have a very clear focus that all the development teams at Apple share, a focus around trying to make really great products. That can sound ridiculously simplistic, almost naive, but it’s very unique for the product to be what consumes you completely. And when I say the product I mean the product in its total sense, the hardware and the software, the complete experience that people will have’ (Beale).
From a strictly hardware-oriented perspective, this focus has manifested itself in unique and nearly undetectable ways, starting with the shape of the handle recess in the original iMac (Ive), continuing with the “bespoke toolset built into the rear casing” of the iBook (Sample). Kahney discusses how Ive explained “at length” the complexities and hard work that went into designing the G5 tower’s aluminum case: “Like the curved outer case, the door is a single piece of metal. But it is more complex than it appears. Ive showed how the door’s fastening mechanism grabbed the door from the inside with a system of three sliding latches” (Kahney).
No one can doubt that by age 41 Jonathan Ive has had a career most designers would envy. Many designers would give anything just to work for Apple, let alone be given the go-ahead by Steve Jobs himself to head the company’s design team. However, Apple’s very reputation for innovative and user-friendly design must in large part be credited to Ive himself. If his focus on whole-product design were not part of Apple’s arsenal, the company might not have the growing market share it has appreciated during Ive’s tenure (Furfie). Ive’s influence in that growth should not be minimized. Jonathan Ive has provided designers with a road from which we all can explore the future, instead of simply looking at the world through boring windows.
Works Cited
Beale, Claire. “Claire Beale on Advertising: The boy from Chingford who puts the bite into Apple’s iconic design.” The Independent. (May 19, 2008). October 6, 2008 <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/comment/claire-beale/claire-beale-on-advertising-830554.html>.
Burrows, Peter. “Who Is Jonathan Ive?” BusinessWeek. (September 25, 2006). October 7, 2008 <http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_39/b4002414.htm? campaign_id=ds7>.
Frost, Caroline. “Jonathan Ive: Apple of the iMac.” BBC News World Edition. January 18, 2002. October 6, 2008 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/ newsmakers/1768724.stm>.
Furfie, Ben. “Mac Market Share on the Rise Globally.” PC Retail. (April 3, 2008). October 13, 2008. <http://www.pcretailmag.com/news/29628/Mac-market-share-on-the-rise-globally>.
Ive, Jonathan. “Jonathan Ive on Apple.” Design Museum, iMac 1998. October 8, 2008. <http://www.designmuseum.org/exhibitions/online/jonathan-ive-on-apple/imac-1998>.
Kahney, Leander. “Design According to Ive.” Wired. (June 25, 2003). October 6, 2008 <http://www.wired.com/culture/design/news/2003/06/59381>.
Sample, Ian. “Profile: Jonathan Ive.” The Guardian. (January 5, 2007). October 6, 2008 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jan/05/design.digitalmedia>.
