I'm typing this entry on my Macintosh PowerBook, a beautiful piece of computing machinery that owes its distinct look and feel to Steve Jobs, the megalomaniacal genius who runs Apple, and to Jonathan Ive, the company's lead designer. As this profile in BusinessWeek shows, Ive is a fascinating guy who marries nearly unparalleled design prowess (as evidenced by almost all of Apple's products, from its desktop computers to the iPod) with close attention to the entire manufacturing and retailing chain which makes the products a reality for consumers.
... If Jobs is the public keeper of Apple's design zeitgeist, then Ive is the private leader of its talented design team. "Apple is a cult, and Apple's design team is an even more intense version of a cult," notes Riley. Actually, it's not a big cult -- just a dozen people or so. But they operate at an extremely high level, both individually and as a group. Ive has said that many Apple products were dreamed up while eating pizza in the small kitchen at the team's design studio. It's a team that has worked in idyllic comfort for many years. Some designers were at the company long before Ive arrived in 1992. They rarely attend industry events or awards ceremonies. It's as though they don't require outside recognition because there isn't any higher authority on design excellence than each other, and because sharing too much information only risks helping others close the gap. And they personally reflect the design sensibilities of Apple's products -- casually chic, elitist and with a definite Euro bent.
I like that last bit a lot, but the article puts a bit too much emphasis on Ive and his tight-knit team. His products aren't merely "elitist," but fantastically popular, too. Clearly, Apple's skilled design team is merely the first (or second, after Jobs) step in a long path of adept personnel and units which cumulatively see a new product through from the designers' studio to the high-sheen counters at the local Apple Store. Somehow, unlike most companies, the "casual chic, elitism, and definite Euro bent" is not only not filtered out of the products, but accented in a phenomenally savvy and profitable way. How does Apple manage this? I'd love to find out.