Key Details
| Occupation: | Designer, Apple |
| Born: | 1967 |
| Nationality: | British |
About His Work
Jonathan Ive has worked at Apple since the early 90s when he was employed by Steve Jobs as a designer. Since then he has worked on many products and designs featuring his tropical colour schemes and industrial designs inspired by the work of Dieter Rams at Braun.
One of Ive’s fist products at Apple was the first generation iMac. When it was released the tropical colour scheme and futuristic translucent plastic finish helped it to become one of Apple’s best selling products at the time. Ive’s work was especially successful due to its desirability and clean aesthetics. Another clever design feature was the relatively new all-in-one PC that contained everything that a user needs to get started in one product, encouraging new users to purchase the product.
The Original iMac all-in-one featured a translucent chassis and was available in a wide range of colours.
Another successful product that Ive developed was the iPod. The iPod’s minimalist industrial design using a simple white colour scheme with a metal back proved to be one of the product’s distinguishing features. Later on Ive introduced his tropical range of colours to the iPod range meaning that it appealed to a wider audience. The iPod revolutionised the music industry through its used of digitally stored music, this success ultimately lead to the collapse of the Sony Walkman line of players transforming the industry. One of the iPod’s successes has been its frequent minor revisions (for example the change from a chrome plated to anodized aluminium back), this has created a cult following of Ive’s work.
Jonathan Ive built upon the successes of his iPod range by introducing the iPhone, with its use of the newly perfected technology of the capacitive touch screen allowing the touch screen to be manufactured completely from glass. It too featured an industrial design, with the latest versions using an enclosure manufactured entirely from glass and aluminium. The iPhone also demonstrates Ive’s  minimalist design; the device features a single prominent button on the front that is both easy and simple to use.
The success of the iPhone has lead other manufactures to aspire to Ive’s work. It is no doubt that the iPhone’s introduction of the touchscreen has revolutionised the industry and also changed consumers opinions on their phones as they strive for more features. One example of how Ive’s work has influenced the competition is with Samsung. The design features that Apple had created that have influenced Samsung’s work have lead to large international patent lawsuits, on the one hand Apple’s innovation must be protected by the patents, however some people think that the patents are broad (due to the design simplicity) and shouldn’t be patented.
This image shows a comparison on the iPhone 4s and the infringing Samsung Galaxy S2
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