![]() When Ive was a boy, his father worked with the British government to develop and set the standards for design education. His father, Michael Ive, is a silversmith, and his grandfather was an engineer. He grew up in Chingford, on the outskirts of London near Epping Forest, a good place for a city kid who liked to play in the trees. But for some reason, it’s part of the human condition that if we struggle to use something, we assume that the problem resides with us.”ĭespite that initial obstacle, Ive seems to have been born to understand industrial design. “Because if you tasted some food that you didn’t think tasted right, you would assume that the food was wrong. In 1985, the year Jobs was forced out of Apple, Jony Ive was in design school in England, struggling with computers, blaming himself. Indeed, the design team is said to have followed an unwritten rule to move away from their work whenever the famously brusque Jobs entered the studio and turn up the volume so as to make his criticisms less audible, less likely to throw them off course. “I find that when I write I need things to be quiet, but when I design, I can’t bear it if it’s quiet,” he says. Work is conducted behind tinted windows, serenaded by the team’s beloved techno music, a must for the boss. Reportedly Ive’s wife, Heather Pegg, has never been-he doesn’t even tell her what he’s working on-and his twin sons, like all but a few Apple employees, are not allowed in either. It may be easier to sneak into a North Korean cabinet meeting than into the Apple design studio, the place where a small group of people have all the tools and materials and machinery necessary to develop things that are not yet things. But one of the very natural settings for the real Jony Ive is a workshop at Apple HQ. the solar system.” You might spot the occasional photo of him out in the world-at the White House for a design award in London being knighted, as he was two years ago, by Princess Anne at a pizza dinner in San Francisco, sitting with Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer and various Silicon Valley execs. One blog imagines what it would be like if Jony Ive designed-well, everything: “Jony Ive redesigns. Ive is obsessed over in design blogs, the sites that cover Apple as if it were the Vatican, following leaks and rumors and passing along hijacked photos of components or screens-pitching best guesses as to what Apple is working on next. “But it is to have that sense that you know there couldn’t possibly be a sane or rational alternative.” “I wish I could articulate this more effectively,” he continues, addressing his ambitions as a designer. He nurses a white mug of tea, and the only thing in the room besides an iPhone is the pair of reading glasses designed by his friend Marc Newson and tucked into the front of his T-shirt: simple, delicate, but clear and strong. When you sit down with Ive, he is eager to chat-too eager, maybe, for the Apple time-minders who are always looking around for him-and will take a while to respond to a question, smiling as he says, “This is going to be a kind of oblique answer.” We are talking in a white room, distracted only by a black non-Apple television-itself a signpost to the question, When will Apple make TVs or whatever will replace them? Noticeably, his phone neither rings nor vibrates he has designed the moment for concentration. It is through this white, with its clarity, its dust-hiding lack of distraction, that you have already met Jonathan Ive. ![]() ![]() White is the color of choice at Apple HQ as in the Apple product line. In the courtyard, trays of beautiful food-grass-fed steaks and fresh-made curries and California-born hot sauces-lead Apple employees out toward the open-air seating, away from the white cafeteria that might be described as a luxurious spa for the terminally nerdy. Ive has a calming presence, like the Apple campus itself, whose very address, Infinite Loop, lulls you into a sense of Zen-ness. ![]() He’s not tall, not small, and looks as if he might be a formidable rugby opponent-though even from a distance he comes across as open and amenable, less likely to tackle you than to do what he is doing with a colleague at this very moment, which is listening. The head Apple designer, who brought you the iMac and the iPad and now, the Apple Watch, has a nearly shaved head and a tightly trimmed beard. I first catch sight of Jony Ive across the Apple campus, in a plain Dodger-blue T-shirt and white painter’s pants, in conversation, nodding. How Apple’s under-the-radar design genius, Jonathan Ive, has found the way to our hearts. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |