Business Insider India
- Apple‘s lead designer Jony Ive is leaving the company.
- A book published in 2014 highlighted some of Ive’s earliest works, like a power drill, before he was at Apple.
- When we think of Jony Ive, it’s easy to remember Apple’s more recent products, which are modern and sleek, but he was designing products for Apple before Steve Jobs even stepped back into the company. Ive has played a major role in Apple’s earlier designs, some of which have led to Apple’s success today.
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Product designers come and go, but few get as much attention as Apple’s lead designer Jony Ive, which Apple announced on Thursday is leaving the company.
Jony Ive wasn’t always Jony Ive, the person in "the white room" during Apple product launches telling you about Apple’s new products.
At one point, he was just a young British designer trying to get by.
However, Ive was a precocious design talent, and from a young age, he was racking up awards for his design work.
Leander Kahney’s, "JONY IVE, The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products" sheds new light on some of Ive’s earliest works. In 2014, we got permission from the book’s publisher to run photos of some of that work.
While Apple products today have a certain look and feel to them, Ive’s early work doesn’t really have a signature to it.
This was intentional.
Kahney highlighted this quote from Paul Kunkel in a book about Apple design: "Unlike most of his generation, Ive did not see design as an occasion to exert his ego or carry out some pre-ordained style or theory. Rather, he approached each project in an almost chameleon-like way, adapting himself to the product (rather than the other way around) … for this reason, Ive’s early works have no ‘signature style.’"
Yet, Ive’s works turned heads. They were so good that Apple’s design leader Bob Brunner spent years recruiting him. Eventually he landed Ive, and the rest is history.
Here’s a look at Ive’s early work, and the evolution of his style.
This is a sketch of concept for an electric pen that could write in different widths and patterns.
Weaver Design London
Ive made this as an intern. It is the TX2 pen, and its big feature is a ball and clip at the top designed for people to fiddle around with. Ive realized people like to fiddle with their pens, so he encouraged it in the design.
Weaver Design London
Ive won an award in the 80s for this futuristic design of the landline phone, which he called the "Orator." He won money from the British government to travel abroad as a result of this design.
Weaver Design London
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- Jony Ive is leaving Apple — here are his most iconic creations, which helped lead Apple from almost certain doom to total dominance
- Apple will be just fine without Jony Ive — sorry, Jony
- Legendary Apple designer Jony Ive says that a conversation with Steve Jobs inspired the name of his new company LoveFrom: ‘You are expressing your gratitude to humanity’
Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Antonio Villas-Boas)