Artist of the day: Artist of the day, August 1: Sir Jonathan "Jony" Ive, a British industrial designer (#780)

Thursday, August 1, 2019

Artist of the day, August 1: Sir Jonathan "Jony" Ive, a British industrial designer (#780)

Sir Jonathan Paul "Jony" Ive, (1967) is a British industrial designer who is the outgoing Chief Design Officer (CDO) of Apple and the serving Chancellor of the Royal College of Art in London. He joined Apple in 1992, where he remained until his announced departure in 2019. Following ten years designing Apple products, he was promoted to Senior Vice President of design. Ive designed the iMac, Power Mac G4 Cube, iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and parts of the user interface of Apple's mobile operating system iOS.

Born and raised in London, England, Ive studied design at Newcastle Polytechnic (later renamed the University of Northumbria at Newcastle), during which time he had his work displayed at the Design Museum. After graduating from Newcastle, Ive was hired by the London-based start-up design firm tangerine to work in their industrials group. Ive began working at Apple in the early 1990s, designing the decade's PowerBooks and Macs. He was invited to join the Royal College of Art in May 2017 as its head-of-college, serving a fixed five-year term until May 2022.

His body of work—from his university years to present—has been influenced by the Bauhaus design tradition, in particular, its focus on the credos "form follows function" and "less is more". German designer Dieter Rams have cited Ive's work as in-line with his ten principles of good design. Parallels in color stencil, structure, and lighting design can be found with the luxury German automotive, Audi. Ive frequently lends his voice—noted for its Essex accent and reserved, loquacious style of speech—to Apple's marketing and promotional videos.

Ive has received a number of accolades and honors for his designs and patents. In the United Kingdom, he has been appointed a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI), an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (HonFREng), and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). In 2018, Ive was awarded the Professor Hawking Fellowship. In a 2004 BBC poll of cultural writers, Ive was ranked the most influential person in British culture. His designs have been described as integral to the successes of Apple.

On 27 June 2019, in an exclusive interview with the Financial Times, Ive announced he would leave Apple after twenty-seven years to start his own design firm, LoveFrom, together with industrial designer Marc Newson.

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