Jonathan Ive is the Armani behind Apple’s sexy new iMac–the only computer in search of a catwalk.
As the battered Apple Computer Inc. moves into its third straight profitable quarter, veteran design director Ive has emerged as a key force as the company tries to show the world its comeback is for real.
Perhaps no one else at Apple–with the exception of co-founder Steve Jobs–is more important to the company’s resuscitation efforts right now.
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That’s because Apple has always relied on the look of its products to break away from the crowded pack of PC manufacturers.
And Ive’s vision is the look.
The company is banking its immediate future on the funky, translucent iMac, a “Jetsons”-inspired–and low-priced–departure from the staid boxes that have dominated desktops.
The 31-year-old Brit has a simple motto for the new computer, which goes on sale at the end of August: “Sorry, no beige.”
He wanted the iMac to stand out by not looking “like it was sort of stuck in one place for 22 years.”
“I wanted people to feel that they’ve seen it or been with it at some point at some time,” he said, “but also for it to live very much in the future.”
The renewed push into cutting-edge design is a liberation for Ive, who first came to Apple’s attention in 1991.
The London-born designer had graduated from Central St. Martins art school and signed on as a partner at the Britain-based Tangerine design firm. He submitted sketches to Apple that played a part in the design for the then-new Mac Powerbook laptop.
The hugely popular Powerbook went on to win numerous design awards and the hearts of Mac lovers everywhere.
So enamored were they of his early work that Apple execs lured the young designer in 1992 to the company full time.
But his debut was followed by frustration.
“We went through quite a few years where the company shipped some pretty banal design solutions,” he said.
By 1996, he was promoted to vice president of Apple’s industrial design department–widely viewed as one of the best in the world.
Under the watchful–some said smothering–eyes of CEOs Michael Spindler and Gil Amelio, Apple’s design dream team kept coming up with hot new looks.
But the company kept cranking out beige boxes like the rest of the industry did.
“Apple has always had great people inside industrial design. Spindler and Amelio never took advantage of them,” said Apple watcher Tim Bajarin of the technology consulting firm Creative Strategies.
“(Apple) was a company that certainly wasn’t innovating,” Ive said.
That all changed last year when Amelio was ousted and Jobs returned as interim CEO of the company he started in 1976.
Work on the iMac started the minute Jobs arrived back at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. Jobs gave Ive free rein on design.
“It was liberating,” Ive said.
As for the chances of success for iMac, “it’s hard to tell if (the design is) going to work or not,” Bajarin said.
But Ive remains confident.
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“Having lived in two environments–where the corporation was terrified at innovating and where we are only innovating, it’s bizarre, but the first scenario seemed absolutely, desperately the most risky,” Ive said.
“Apple really was born to innovate.”