Why He's No. 43

As Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple Inc. since 1997, Jonathan Ive is acknowledged as the chief creator behind many of the company's immensely successful products, including the iMac, iBook, PowerBook G4, iPhone, and perhaps his greatest innovation, the iPod.

Back Stage

Ive was raised in Chingford, East London by his teacher father and studied Industrial Design at Northumbria University (Newcastle Polytechnic at the time). In his youth, he attended Chingford Foundation School. After a short time at the London design agency Tangerine, [2] Ive moved to the United States in 1992 to pursue his career at Apple Inc. [3] He gained his current job title upon the return of Steve Jobs in 1997, and since then has headed the Industrial Design team responsible for most of the company's significant hardware products. In keeping with Jonathan’s fiercely-protected privacy, information is scarce about his life before joining Apple in 1992. Indeed his exact date of birth is not known by Apple and could not be published by Who’s Who when it featured him in 2007. In interviews Jonathan has spoken about always being interested in the construction of objects as a child, and a fascination with taking those objects apart. After attending school in the south of England he moved North to study art and design (some sources cite “industrial design”) at Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University) in 1985. One of his tutors was Bob Young. He graduated with first class honours having created a pebble-shaped concept for a product to replace cash and credit cards as his final year project. In 1990 Jonathan moved to London and co-founded his own design studio, Tangerine, with Martin Darbyshire. At Tangerine Ive commercialised his design skills, creating products ranging from hair combs and power tools to televisions and ceramics. A large client of Tangerine was the bathroom and plumbing company Ideal Standard for whom Jonathan designed toilets - after seeking inspiration from marine biology books.

Forcaste

Critics regard Ive's work as being among the best in industrial design, and his team's products have repeatedly won awards such as the Industrial Designers Society of America's Industrial Design Excellence Award. Ive was the winner of the Design Museum's inaugural Designer of the Year award in 2002, and won again in 2003. In 2004, he was a juror for the award. Ive is known to be unselfish in how he is attributed; in interviews, for example, he always emphasises the teamwork that goes into the products for which he receives recognition and fame.