Jonathan Ive is knighted: The rise of Apple’s chief designer

Jonathan Ive, the designer responsible for how Apple’s best-loved products have looked since 1998, has been knighted today.

Hailing from Chingford, the 45-year-old has been the creative inspiration behind the iMac, MacBook Air, iPod, iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad.

But it wasn’t always obvious he was destined to change the way we all relate to technology. A student at Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London and later Newcastle Polytechnic [now called University of Northumbria], his burning ambition was to design cars.

Upon graduation, however, he moved into commercial design work - setting up agency Tangerine with three friends. It was while he worked there that Apple noticed the budding designer, taking him on as a full-time staff member in 1992.

[Related article: Knighthood For Apple's British Designer]

Sir Jonathan’s rise within Apple was meteoric. Four years later he was heading the firm’s design team, which under his leadership produced the iMac G3 in 1998. The desktop computer was a huge commercial success. It came in a bright array of colours, from ‘Bondi’ blue to tangerine. Sir Jonathan’s design was so well-liked Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly said: "It looks so good you kinda' wanna lick it".

Thereafter Sir Jonathan had a key role in the design of every Apple product as the company went from strength-to-strength.

First came the original iPod in 2001, a device which has seen 17 follow-up models. The music player had a revolutionary ‘clickwheel’ which remains on the product in a modified version to this day. Sir Jonathan’s iPod design is now regarded as a ‘cultural artefact’ by the Museum of Modern Art, which added the device to its ‘MoMA highlights since 1980’ collection.

Apple’s continuing success with the iPod is in part credited to Sir Jonathan’s design, which saw him named the 2003 ‘Designer of the Year’ by the Design Museum London. The same year he was also awarded the title ‘Royal Designer for Industry’ by The Royal Society of Arts. His success saw him rise to senior vice president of Apple, overseeing the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad. 

All the while Steve Jobs remained the poster boy. Speaking to Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson,  Sir Jonathan showed he is fiercely protective of his creations.

In a rare outburst, Sir Jonathan said: “He [Jobs] will go through a process of looking at my ideas and say, ‘That’s not very good. I like that one,'" Sir Jonathan said. "And later I will be sitting in the audience and he will be talking about it as if it was his idea. I pay maniacal attention to where an idea comes from, and I even keep notebooks filled with my ideas. So it hurts when he takes credit for one of my designs.”

But clearly the two were very close. Jobs called Sir Jonathan his “spiritual partner” at Apple. "He understands what we do at our core better than anyone,” he said.

On being knighted, Sir Jonathan, who now lives in San Francisco with his British wife and two sons, said that he was “both humbled and sincerely grateful” for the “absolutely thrilling honour”.