Apple chief design officer Jony Ive (L) and Apple CEO Tim Cook on September 12, 2018.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
- Apple’s partnership with famed design chief, Jony Ive, is over after three years.
- Ive launched his own company in 2019, with an agreement for Apple to be a primary client.
- Here’s all you need to know about Jony Ive and his lasting, 27-year legacy at Apple.
Jony Ive, Apple’s longtime design chief, is officially severing ties with the company.
Ive left Apple in mid-2019 to launch his own independent design company, LoveFrom, and signed a $100 million multi-year partnership with his former employer. But just three years later, both he and Apple have decided not to renew their contract, sources told The New York Times this week, in part so Ive could have more freedom with the clients he works with — whether they’re Apple’s competitors or not.
Ive worked at Apple for 27 years. In that time, he received countless awards and accolades for his ingenuity and commitment to Apple’s minimalist design aesthetic.
The knighted London native is frequently spotted at clubs and lives in San Francisco, not terribly far from Apple’s headquarters. Ive’s success at Apple has made him a household name and catapulted him into pop culture discourse.
Here’s what you need to know about Jony Ive, the famed Apple designer:
Jonathan Paul Ive was born on Feb. 27, 1967, in Chingford, England, a suburb of London. His father was a silversmith, and his mother was a psychotherapist.
Source: Cult of Mac
While attending secondary school, Ive was diagnosed with dyslexia.
Romrodphoto / Shutterstock
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Ive studied industrial design at Newcastle Polytechnic, now called Northumbria University.
Flickr/thedeveloptmentofbirmingham
Source: Cult of Mac
Some of Ive’s collegiate drawings have been exhibited at the London Design Museum.
Wikimedia Commons
Source: The Design Museum
Here’s an early Ive sketch of an electronic pen that could write in different widths and patterns.
Copyright Weaver Design. Used courtesy of Portfolio/Penguin, publisher of JONY IVE, The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products
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His first design for Apple was the second-generation Newton MessagePad. Ive’s favorite part was the flip cover, which foreshadowed the popularity of flip cellphones.
Photos courtesy of Portfolio/Penguin, publisher of JONY IVE, The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products
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Here’s a shot of Ive when he was a little younger. He joined Apple in 1992 and became Senior VP of Design after Steve Jobs became CEO in 1997.
Source: Wired
Jobs’ first major assignment for Ive was the classic, candy-colored iMac, pictured below.
Source: 9To5Mac
Ive went on to lead the design on Apple’s biggest products, including the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad.
Steve Jobs holds the new iPhone at the Apple store in central London, on September 18, 2007.
REUTERS/Alessia Pierdomenico
Ive maintained creative oversight over the design of Apple’s products and worked with CEO Tim Cook to launch new products like the Apple Watch.
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These days, Ive lives in San Francisco.
YouTube/TheDesignStalker
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In 2012 he bought this 4-bedroom house in Pacific Heights for $17 million. That part of the neighborhood is called “Billionaire’s Row,” and for good reason.
Google Street View
It was designed by Willis Polk, a renowned San Francisco architect who designed the city’s Palace of Fine Arts.
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Ive has a beach house on the island of Kauai in Hawaii, too.
Shutterstock/Pierre Leclerc
Source: The New Yorker
Ive also has quite the car collection. He once helped his dad restore an Austin-Healey Sprite.
Flickr/sg2012
Source: Cult of Mac
Ive used to own an Aston Martin DB9, but he crashed it near San Bruno, California.
Flickr/thebogroll
Source: Cult of Mac
Ive bought another DB9, but caught fire. So he complained to Aston Martin and they gave him a deal on their Vanquish supercar.
Flickr/janesyb
Source: Cult of Mac
Next Ive bought a white Bentley Brooklands. Here’s a shot of the interior.
YouTube/Mehdi Soltanian
Source: Cult of Mac
Ive liked the Brooklands so much he bought a second one in black.
YouTube/Mehdi Soltanian
Source: Cult of Mac
He also owns a Land Rover LR3.
Flickr/klausnahr
Source: Cult of Mac
After Steve Jobs died, Ive asked CEO Tim Cook for his own Gulfstream jet. Apple’s board rejected the request, so Ive bought Jobs’ former plane instead.
Benjamin Zhang/
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In May 2012, Ive was knighted in Buckingham Palace by Princess Anne, Queen Elizabeth II’s only daughter. Ive said the experience was “absolutely thrilling.”
Getty Images
Source: BBC News
Ive met the Duchess of Cambridge in 2012 at Royal Academy of Arts creative industries reception.
Getty Images
Source: Zimbio
He’s friends with U2’s Bono and prominent designer Marc Newson, too.
Getty Images/Cindy Ord
Source: Southeby’s
Ive is also close with Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. The two sat together at this dinner in 2013.
Marissa Mayer CEO dinner.
Mike Cassidy, Facebook
Source: The Verge
In 2014, he was spotted at the Chiltern Firehouse, a posh nightclub in London’s West End.
Wikimedia Commons
Source: The Daily Dot
He also gets invited to mingle with the rich and powerful — here he is at the White House State Dinner for UK Prime Minister David Cameron in 2012.
Getty Images/Brendan Hoffman
Source: Zimbio
In 2014, Ive was spotted at Apple headquarters with LA Lakers star Kobe Bryant. “I went up to Apple to spend the day there, talking with Jony (Ive) and picking his brain,” Bryant said.
Alex Gallardo/AP
Source: Medium
His design fame has led him to charity work. Ive designed this Leica, which set the record for a camera sold at auction.
Getty Images/John Moore
Source: Wired
He also designed this Jaeger-LeCoultre watch for an AIDS charity auction.
Sotheby’s
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Ive was spotted at an Oscars party hosted by Madonna in 2015. He was reportedly “basically inseparable” from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Elon Musk.
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File
Source: Apple Insider
In May 2015, Ive was promoted to the role of chief design officer at Apple.
Stephen Lam / Getty Images
Source: The Design Museum
From 2015 to 2017, Ive focused on Apple’s new headquarters, the Apple Park “spaceship,” for which he designed most of the little details.
YouTube/Matthew Roberts
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Ive regained direct control of Apple’s design team in 2017.
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Design team leads Evans Hankey, vice president of industrial design, and Alan Dye, vice president of human interface design, began reporting to Ive again.
Source: Bloomberg, .
In June 2019, Apple announced that Ive was leaving the company after 27 years at the company.
Getty Images/Michael Kovac
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Ive revealed he would be leaving Apple to launch his own independent design company called LoveFrom. Apple is the design firm’s first client, and Ive told the Financial Times he hopes to stay “very involved” in Apple’s designs for “many, many years to come.”
Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive at the New Yorker TechFest conference.
Getty
Source: Financial Times
But in July 2022, that agreement came to an end when Ive and Apple decided not to renew their contract, sources told The New York Times. Their 30-year partnership is over.
Jony Ive and Tim Cook.
Stephen Lam/Reuters
Source: The New York Times
This is an update to a story by Sam Colt originally published in 2014.
