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Jonathan Ive Named Designer of the Year
no_demons writes "Jonathan Ive, the man behind the iMac and the iPod, has won the first Designer of the Year award from the Design Museum in London. The Independent has the scoop, and BBC2 has the documentary on Wednesday, June 11th."
Now we just need this guy to design a universal remote control since most designs suck!
Regarded as one of the world's most influential product
designers, Jonathan Ive is vice-president of industrial
design at Apple in California. By combining what he
describes as "fanatical care beyond the obvious stuff"
with relentless experiments into tools, materials and
production processes, he and the Apple design team
have designed and developed such ground-breaking
products as the iMAC, iBook, the PowerBook G4,
the Cube and the iPod MP3 player.
Born in London in 1967, Ive studied art and design at
Newcastle Polytechnic before co-founding Tangerine,
a design consultancy where he developed everything
from power tools to televisions. In 1992, one of his clients -
Apple - offered him a job at its headquarters in Cupertino,
California. Ive has described his first years at Apple as
"frustrating" because the company appeared to have
lost its earlier commitment to design and innovation.
Apple's culture changed when Steve Jobs, one of the
original co-founders, rejoined and restored its original
values. The first project on which Ive collaborated with
Jobs was the iMac. Not only did it help Apple financially
by selling more than 2m units in its first year, the iMac
transformed product design by introducing colour and
light to the drab world of computing where, until its
arrival, new products were routinely encased in
opaque grey or beige plastic.
The Apple design team has since applied the same
lateral thinking and passionate attention to detail to
the to inserting innovative new products
such as the Cube, the iPod and the PowerBook G4 into cowboy neal's ass. Jonathan
Ive was nominated for the Designer of the Year prize
for his exceptional record of ingenuity and innovation.
See more of Jonathan Ive's work at Apple: www.apple.com
IIRC ID (industrial design) is about aesthetics and functionality. Looking at the other three contestants, most are very skewed in one of the two. Actually I have no idea why Vice-City was in there altogether.
Anyway, well deserved regardless. After all the attempts of copy-cat manufactures from Korea and Taiwan, nothing beats the simple and elegance of Apple products.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Good. I think he deserves this. The iPod/iMac are/were "innovative". Even if that word has lost most of it's meaning with the use of it by a certain Northwest company.
I think it goes without saying that this guy has changed the way a lot of people look at computers today.
They aren't just mindless machines that perform a task, thanks to him and apple they are elegant pieces of art and form met with function.
I mean come on, take a look at the iPod for example. It uses a radial menu -- the most efficient menu design, combined with the scroll wheel and a large LCD. It's completely intuitive, and so simple to use that it justifies the extra $100 compared with other mp3 players of it's class.
- tristan
I believe that he has been fundamental in Apple's recent successes. It also speaks well of Apple's management. Love him or hate him, Jobs seems to be making some excellent decisions, including personnel decisions. I'm sure HP would love to get him in to FIX the Athens PC. It's one thing to have visionaries at the helm, which I don't doubt that most execs have visions for their companies, but its another to be able to build a team that will bring it to brilliant fruition.
The original Palms and the ones with roman numeral numbers were nice looking. The M-series and now the tungsten ones are ugly. I agree palm needs to put a lot more effort into the look of their handhelds. So does Handspring; Treo is a huge step down from Visor.
Jason
ProfQuotes
Congratulations to Mr. Ive.
I'm glad there are still companies that care about DESIGN and the feel of something in your hand.
I was thinking of this today when I saw the ugly new Canon G5, an otherwise great camera that looks like a shrunken down 1970's rangefinder, complete with gratutious and useless chrome trim.
The best designs are MINIMAL. The best designs have no more buttons than necessary, that have a screen just large enough, that focus on small details and never add elements unless they are absolutely necessary. If they are held in the hand, they should be smooth and inviting and free of buttons to accidentally press, and not sharp or cold, which may look beautiful, but subconciously you want to avoid touching it.
Although Apple doesn't get 100% right all the time (the best designs are also EGOLESS as well as minimal, and do not draw attention to themselves) they are trying hard where most manufacturers are content to use ugly swooping plastic or cold sharp metal.
The radial menu of the iPod is really efficient, but evidentally Apple doesn't know/care. The latest revision of the iPod does away with the buttons laid out around the edge of the wheel, replacing them with 4 similarly-labeled buttons above the wheel. (And they're "touch" buttons, rather than mechanical ones, allowing for easier accidental pushing than the mechanical ones, besides the fact they no longer guard the touch wheel... all in all, meaning you had better have the thing locked when it's in your pocket.)
It seems like they're willing to throw away good design to get upgrades.
Now I want this guy to Design a PDA
He did.
Of course this is all just as bad is the newspapers, TV stations, and websites who run these sort of garbage polls and tout them as having any sort of validity. In reality they're just calculated come-on's for for the website being used and anyone with half a clue knows to discount this sort of trivially rigged "slacktivism". Nonetheless I keep getting emails asking me to vote in blahblahblah.com's poll to show my support for #cause.
My advice is not to play sucker for these folks & their fake poles, when you come across them ask the sponsors exactly how valid they consider their results to be. Then ask if this is really the "news" they pretend or are they just being slimers, do they feel this discredits their entire operation?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Well isn't Apply trying to make the iPod into a watered down PDA, with its "More ways to have fun."
According to Apple: "The iPod now lets you do a whole lot more in addition to maintaining your contacts, calendar and to-do lists. iPod now includes Solitaire, Brick and Parachute... iPod also includes a notes reader that lets you download text-based information and read it on the screen... The iPod features a sleep timer, so you can fall asleep to your music."
And we all know that the iPod cn act as a portable hard drive, right?
Remeber folks, this is the man who is responsible for the aisles and aisles of "blueberry" and "lime" and other fruit colored office suplies in the past few years.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The look is one part of the industrial design. Actually creating something -functional- while keeping that look is a whole lot harder.
I think most of us could create the look of a possible next Apple machine with a 3D renderer or photoshop, but then having the knowhow of materials design to implement it, while also having the guts of a computer fit, is far more a talent. It's probably the nittygritty 90% perspiration part of industrial design, and Ive is involved in the whole process.
As for whether it was ripped off someone elses sketch, I doubt anyone will ever know. Only thing for sure is Ive and his team did a great job of bringing it to reality.
I very rarely use Apple products for reasons I don't feel like debating right, now but I think this guy does deserve an award. Apple compensates for some of its downfalls with excellent design and the iMac and the iPod are prime examples of this great design. If a sleek design is your primary concern when purchasing electronics then Apple is your company. I wish I got the BBC, I would definately check it out.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
I'm still saving up for an iPod, but I've been reading up, asking around, and visiting my local Apple Store.
The original, circular arrangement of the iPod buttons makes for one of the most gorgeous, pure-Ive creations ever, but the outermost circle of buttons (top: menu; left: skip back; right: skip forward; bottom: play/pause) are just that, the outermost, which makes them inefficient for one-handed operation -- say, in your jacket pocket. You've got to slide your thumb (or other finger, if you like RSI) all the way across the middle of the circle to reach the other side, which (1) is too much of a stretch and (2) risks messing with the scroll wheel.
The linear arrangement of those four buttons on the new-design iPod, while not nearly as visually elegant, makes for a much more ergonomic interface. The wheel-touchpad and its center button get their own dedicated space, and the transport controls get theirs. As a user of several past Sony VCRs, I can tell you that having your transport controls separate is far more sensible than having them visually melded with, and thus placed too damned close to, a rotary control.
Actually, the "touch" buttons are harder to accidentally push than the mechanical ones. I've been told that you have to set the hold button on an original iPod just to put it in your pocket; otherwise, something gets pressed, or the scroll wheel (on the early, mechanical-wheel models) gets spun, none of which is good for uninterrupted listening. The new "touch" buttons don't trigger on contact with clothing or even an accidental brush with a finger. The touch wheel doesn't need to be guarded, and you don't have to lock it for your pocket.
The original design has a beautiful geometric simplicity, but don't mistake geometric simplicity for higher usability.
Don't get me wrong: I love the look of the original iPod, and someday I'll pick up a dead one on eBay just to hold and ogle. The thick transparent faceplate, with its sharp edges, is too gorgeous for photographs to convey. But, as with the buttons, it's not a better design.
Its possibly one of the best keyboards I've ever used, including an old "clicky" IBM one I had in one of my old jobs.
I'm incredibly surprised to hear comments like this. All of Apple's current keyboards are ergonomic hazards, unless you perhaps have really small hands or have replaced your hands with cybernetic limbs. There is no wrist support, the keys do not bounce back well, and the keys are too close together. In the case of their keyboards, Apple has chosen form over function.
Only two Apple keyboards have ever been good enough for day-to-day usage. One was the Apple Extended Keyboard (the original, not the II), which had good tactile response, though its ergonomic features were slim-to-none. The other was the Apple Ergonomic Keyboard -- you know, the one they released in 1992 which could split into two sections and had a separate numpad. It was more ergonomic than anything MS puts out, its keys were reminescent of the early IBM clickity-clackity keyboards, and the keys had ample space between themselves. It's one of the best keyboards I've ever used, though it was a bit on the large side.
Sadly, Apple stopped making ergonomic keyboards, even though it helped to popularize their usage with the mainstream. I guess Steve has a secretary to dictate all his typing; I'm not sure why else he would be so ambivalent about the risks of CTS (I got minor nerve damage from use of the Mac Plus keyboard while in college).
Beg to differ, Sir.
Drives, RAM and cables...of course not. Motherboard...as we agree. The power supply in a new dual processor G4 is BTO from Samsung, and no other manufacturer uses it. The video cards are not PC compatible, nor do they have identical feature sets or ROMs. Lesser commonality means more cost. An aluminum laptop... Who else? Titanium...no one.
No other manufacturer will spend the money for proprietary connectors, switches, tooling, fasteners. most expensive cartons and low yield assembly runs...money is most definitely a factor, and with Dell and HP chasing each other's tails, they will never spend the same...not to mention that Dell has no R & D to speak of...why? Oh, yet again....money. Even Sun is balking at spending the kind of money Apple does these days. I know, I work for the largest electronics manufacturer in Korea, supporting OEMs.
While ID may be the iceing on the cake, unit cost and ROI are the plate that cake is served on.
Or perhaps unless you have learned to type properly. Wrist support should be a non-issue since one shouldn't be resting one's wrists to begin with. Having learned to type on an IBM Selectric, I don't particularly care for the amount of key travel or the lack of clickiness on Apple's (or most anyone else's) keyboards, (especially my iBook -- and don't get me started on the upside-down W on the M key...) but that's more personal taste than ergonomics.
As for expansion ports, that was probably a decision that Steve Jobs and the engineering team had influence too. Expansion ports are almost against the idea of the iMac: all-in-one computer. Since most of the core functions were built-in (video, sound, modem, Ethernet) Apple's thinking probably was that if somebody needed more functionality, they could use USB or Firewire to get it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.