It was great to hear Sir Jony Ive on BBC R4’s Desert Island Discs on Sunday, as ever, claiming to be ‘no communicator’ yet completely and eloquently nailing in his relaxed tones, why good design really, really matters, both for economic success and also to just make our lives better.
Ive’s career started with his degree from Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University) where he was on the same course as my flatmate Rod, and perhaps this is why I have always followed his extraordinary progress through life. While flatmate Rod filled our flat with an array of wacky 3D designs, Jony Ive, son of a silversmith/lecturer, won multiple awards during his student time at Newcastle, and rapidly leapt into a stellar design career for Apple Computers, where his leading hand in the iconic range of Apple products (imac G3, ipod, iphone, ipad) turned all of our worlds upside-down.
Jony understood that as a designer, his key function was to understand people, and to forge a bridge between the product and user. This simple truth is the same for all designers whether in landscape, architecture, or technology. Jony made intuitive, friendly connections between humans and technology, designing products that were sleek, touchable, colourful and irresistible. Ive’s design for the 1998 iMac looked like a delicious jellybean, and smashed the previous mould of computers while sitting in a much smaller footprint than anything else on the market. After two million iMacs were sold in 1998, the design gave Apple its first profitable year since 1995.
In 2003 Ive was named the Designer of the Year by the Design Museum, while at Apple, he continued to develop such popular products as the iPod portable MP3 player (first introduced in 2001) and the iPhone (2007), eventually becoming Apple’s chief design officer.
Jony’s synergistic relationship with Steve Jobs was at the heart of this success. They shared lunch every day, family holidays, and a core enthusiasm for excellence, resulting in a suite of products that surely represents a golden age in the advance of human technology. In Sunday’s episode of DDD on Radio 4, Ive struggled to speak about his deep sadness at the untimely death of Steve Jobs at the age of 57 from cancer. Some critics say that Apple products seem a little less extraordinary these days, without the dynamism of that particular dual human relationship propelling the range forwards, but I, for one, remain firmly wedded to my iPhone.
Ive left Apple in 2019, to open the design collective called LoveFrom (with Marc Newson), with product designs ranging from Ferrari’s first electric car to the official emblem for the coronation of Charles III. His eclectic new design palette further proves to me at least, that the nature of the item you are designing doesn’t really matter, it’s all about mindset, and forging that irresistible bridge between person and product. If we could sprinkle some of Jony’s magic dust into our design approach at Southern Green, it would simply be to take that simple truth of designing for people, and studying every detail to drive excellence in form, function and economic success.
Written by Ros Southern, Director Southern Green
