The Daily Mail — I know! — has posted up an excellent bio on Jonny Ive, explaining how the soft-spoken muscle man from Chingford went from designing toilet bowls — I know! — to becoming the lead designer over at Apple, which they argue makes him the most valuable Englishman on Earth.
From a news perspective, the most interesting detail of the bio might be word from close friends of Ive who say that he has no intention of leaving Apple to go back to the UK, and is, in fact, looking to sell his Grade II mansion in Britain to concentrate on America more closely.
There’s so much more, though. For example, this fantastic description of how Ive met Jobs, which has got to be heartening to anyone who has toiled away in a thankless job, his talents unrecognized: you too might suddenly meet someone who will transform your life forever.
The design team was eventually forced to surrender the Cray supercomputer it used for simulating new gadgets. Even the designs that did get built were met with a lukewarm reception. Ive’s Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh was one of the first computers to have a flat LCD screen but it was saddled with a strangely squashed appearance and a massive price tag. Originally priced at $9,000, it was selling for under $2,000 by the time it was pulled from shelves less than a year later.
But just as Ive was considering a return to England, his luck changed. In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple after an absence of 12 years. He purged the company, dropping most of its products and dispensing with staff. Eventually, Jobs took a tour of the design department, then based across the street from Apple’s main campus.
‘Jobs comes in, looks at all Ive’s amazing prototypes and says, “My God, what have we got here?”’ says Kahney.
Jobs swiftly brought Ive in from the cold, moving the designers into a building on campus and investing in the latest rapid-prototyping equipment. He also beefed up Apple’s security, locking down the design studio to prevent leaks and installing a private kitchen so designers wouldn’t talk shop in public.
Yup, that’s Cult of Mac’s Dear Leader himself, Leander Kahney, quoted. A fantastic read well worth draining a cup of joe over this morning.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
20 responses to “How Jonny Ive Went From Designing Toilet Bowls To Making iPhoes”
iPhones?
What is it with Apple sites and the Daily Heil at the moment?
Excellent Article (?) – not one mention of HOW Johnny went from Toilet Bowls to Apple, no mention of the iPhone at all, and all in all no journalism of even the blogging type present in this waste of time post. The Sensationalism that Mr. Brownlee is using definitely draws a click, however continued garbage like this is why CoM is slowly moving to the bottom of my Mac news sites list.
To anyone thats not familiar with the Daily Mail. The Daily Mails a news paper (debatable) in the UK who’s content shares similarities with Hitlers “Mein Kampf”, hence it’s alternative name “The Daily Heil”.
I bet the Daily Mail could spell iPhone properly in their headlines…
The Daily Mail’s article is in no way excellent. Their whole intent is to give Brits the impression that Johnathan Ive is the brains behind Apple’s products, that he came up with ideas, created the technology and created the hardware and the software. As an American who regularly checks out what they are up to, I can tell you that there is a consistent drumbeat of inaccurate information that comes from these Brits, with the intention of saying that everything invented on the face of the planet is somehow British and that all American inventions and/or creations are stolen from the British.
The Daily Mail is very anti American and revels in war, it is one of the worst rags on the face of the planet.
iPhoe? That’s one of the Asian knock-offs, right?
You did steal everything, even the world “Apple” was stolen from our beautiful language!
Someone stole your god damned brain. As for your “beautiful” language, where did you get it from? I’m sure the Romans and the Germanic people (Anglo-Saxons) would laugh at your idiocy.
What you mean? I thought it was explained in this bit:
“‘Tangerine had a consultancy contract with the bathroom-fittings company to design a toilet. I was there when Jony made an excellent presentation to this guy who was wearing a red nose because it was Comic Relief day. This clown then decided to throw his weight around and pulled apart Jony’s design. It was ridiculous. Britain lost Jony Ive then and there.’
Tangerine had also been hired to do some work for Apple, and Ive’s visits to California offered him an escape route.”
It then talks about his visit to Apple and how he got a job and how he toiled away for years under-appreciated until Steve Jobs returned to the company.
What aspect of the ‘Toilet Bowls to Apple’ needs to be elaborated?