Meeting Jonathan Ive

Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes

Meeting someone within the design industry you respect so greatly is rare and to come away from meeting them and not to have your opinion of them somewhat diminished by their arrogant nature and self-obsession is even more uncommon.

However, this was the case after meeting the great designer Jonathan Ive (Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple, principal designer of the iMac, iPod and the iPhone) and even being able to ask him a few questions one-to-one.

I was invited to join an audience with Jonathan Ive to see him receive his award of Honorary Doctor at the University of the Arts London on the 16th of November 2006 (this blog post is way overdue, I know). After receiving his doctorate he followed with a conversation with Dylan Jones, editor of British GQ on stage and answered a few questions from the audience (with the pre-warning not to ask anything specific about new Apple products, or any of their well publicised secret ways of working).

After the event had finished (or so we thought) drinks and hors d’œuvres were served while the audience mingled and from the back of the room a quiet man attracting lots of attention appeared and casually walked round to speak with those who had stayed on. It was incredibly refreshing to see such an accomplished designer take such concern and pay detailed attention to questions from students.

My question was whether the Graphic Design team was a separate division to Jonathan’s team and if so how they co-worked and whether he was personally oversaw them.

His humble answer was that he knew too little to about Graphic Design to oversee their efforts and that he worked with a great Graphic Design team that indeed operated as a separate entity. I agreed with him that the Apple Graphic Designers are superb and that their attention to detail results in the unwrapping of an Apple product to be a ceremony to be enjoyed within itself and something as a Graphic Designer I very much savoured.

We shook hands and he was gracious enough to pose for a picture with me (credit to Apple-Z).

Should you ever be fortunate enough to have the chance to hear this quiet down-to-earth revolutionary designer speak – be sure to listen.

Overview of the conversation between Jonathan Ive and Dylan Jones, editor of British GQ

An in-depth look at who is Jonathan Ive

Design Museum’s Q&A with Designer of the Year 2003