5 Things You Should Know About Apple's Jonathan Ive

With the passing of Steve Jobs, everyone from investors to consumers are asking the same question: who will continue Apple's tradition of state-of-the-art design and unparalleled usability? Some news outlets are reporting that Jobs left a pretty clear product road map that will carry the company for the next four years. But even if he didn't, we think Apple will be fine in the hands of the newly appointed CEO Tim Cook and the Senior VP of Design, Jonathan Ive.

Born, raised, and educated in England, Ive, 44, was hired by Apple in 1992 after consulting on a few of its products. When Steve Jobs returned to the company in 1997 and saw some of Ive's prototypes, he made the Brit Senior VP of Design, a position he's since held. Starting with the original iMac and going all the way to the iPad, Apple has churned out some of the most design-forward products in history, while under his direction. As long as the award-winning designer is employed in Cupertino, Calif., we think Apple will be just fine. Want to know more about the design wunderkind? Keep reading.

Most people know Ive as the man behind the many Apple iDevices like, the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. However, before the letter “I” was introduced into the fold, Ive worked on Apple’s first handheld computer, the MessagePad. When he first arrived at Apple in 1993, he was tasked with designing a product to run Apple’s ill-fated Newton OS.

You would think the man that helped the world’s most profitable computer company usher in a era would have a strong background in technology. Nope. Not even close. In an interview with the Design Museum after winning its first ever Designer of the Year award in 2003, Ive shared that while in college, decades before he began working in Cupertino, Calif., he had trouble using a computer before he discovered the Macintosh: “I went through college having a real problem with computers. I was convinced that I was technically inept, which was frustrating as I wanted to use computers to help me with various aspects of my design. Right at the end of my time at college I discovered the Mac.” How’s that for fate?

Jonathan Ive is not alone in being heavily influenced by Dieter Rams. The former Chief of Design at Braun has strongly influenced an entire generation of designers with his Ten Principles of “Good Design”. Rams himself, in a documentary film Objectified, said he thought Apple was the only computer designing products according to his principles. If you take a look at the above image, you can just how closely Ive was influenced by Rams work. The resemblance between some past Braun products and some of Apple’s most popular products—look at the T3 Pocket Radio and the iPod, or the T1000 Radio and the Power Mac G5—is uncanny.

In 1997, when Steve Jobs returned to the company he co-founded 21 years earlier, his first order of business was to purge Apple of all its dead weight. That meant laying off a large number of employees and killing off all but four of Apple’s 60 products. He also set out to find a new head of design. He looked all over the world, reaching out to the man who designed the IBM ThinkPad, Richard Sapper, and even famed automotive designer Giorgetto Giugiaro (VW Golf & Scirocco).

Then Steve Jobs wandered over to Ive’s workspace and saw a number of mockups and prototypes the young Briton was working on. Blown away, Jobs decided his new head of design was already on the team. Good thing, too. Rumor has it one of those prototypes was the iMac.

Some designers are happy to have just one product make it into New York’s famed Museum of Modern Art. Jonathan Ive has six. The short-lived Power Mac G4 Cube (seen above), the iBook, the iMac G4, the iPod, the Harman/Kardon iSub subwoofer, and the translucent Power Mac G4 Cube Speakers. Head to the museum at any given time and you’ll be sure to catch at least of these on display.