We all have heard, listened, seen and read — the legendary Chief Design Officer of #Apple

Sir Jonathan Paul “Jony” Ive, KBE, HonFREng, RDI is leaving the company. He is also the serving Chancellor of the Royal College of Art in London.

Media reports say his departure was long in the making and that his new, independent design firm will count Apple as a client. The British designer has been pivotal in the creation of such products as the #Mac, the #iPod, and the #iPhone that have changed Apple’s and our lives. His departure presents Apple’s CEO #TimCook a huge challenge in replacing him.

Let’s delve back a couple of decades into the past. In 1997, Jobs had just returned to Apple and needed to reinvigorate the innovative soul of the organization. He wanted design to be at the core of this renewal. Since Apple was a computer company at that time, you would have expected Jobs would have searched for an expert computer designer — someone well-respected in the industry.

He did not. Before joining Apple, Ive had been an independent design consultant in London. His firm, Tangerine, was involved in designing household products (for example, Tangerine was a consultant for Ideal Standard, then a major player in the bathroom and plumbing industry). The young designer then moved to Apple in 1992, but the designs he was involved in prior to 1997 were not especially successful. So, Jobs’s decision to pick him to be chief designer seemed irrational.

Yet, in hindsight it was a brilliant choice. The lesson: When choosing an innovator, look to the future, not the past.

Before 1997 personal computers were mainly office machines. But the advent of the #internet ushered in a new era: Computers were fast becoming a fixture in homes; people therefore would need a machine that would fit into their living rooms or kitchens.

If Jobs had looked to the past, he would have searched for an expert designer of office computers, possibly a successful one. That choice, however, would have led to the creation of another perfect, beige box. Jobs instead looked to the future: If computers would become home machines, then recruiting someone who had designed products for the homes wouldn’t be such a crazy idea.

The first product designed under Ive’s leadership was the #iMacG3, introduced in 1998. It was acclaimed as one of the most revolutionary personal computers ever released, with a design language that was completely novel for the industry: a friendly shell in translucent colored plastic and an ovoid form that challenged the dominant paradigm of unsympathetic beige boxes. The same translucent plastic and colors had already spread into household products in the early 1990s (an example was Alessi’s colorful plastic kitchenware).

If Tim Cook has absorbed Steve Jobs’s lesson, his choice of Ive’s successor will reveal his vision of the emerging world in which Apple will compete in the years ahead.

This gives an idea where Ive is placed in the history of design or you can just look it as another instance of brilliance of the man named #SteveJobs.

Wishing you all the best for your future Sir #JonyIve.

Originally published on LinkedIn on 5th July, 2019.

Photograph from the Internet.

Source :- https://hbr.org/…/what-jony-ives-years-at-apple-can-teach-u…

And others.