My iMac Design

I am making a piece inspired by Jonathan Ive. I am going to take his design of the iMac 1998 and make my own.

I have sketched out some of my ideas on paper. At first i was trying to create an iMac with the handle enhanced to make it the main thing to look at but then realized a computer would look quite silly with a big handle on the top.

I came up with the idea of having a discrete handle on the top of the computer. I am putting the screen more in side of the computer and having storage space at the bottom of the screen. It makes the screen more private, if there was someone sitting next to you they couldn't see your screen. The back of the computer is rounded no edges. 

iMac 1998

Jonathan Ive designed the iMac in 1998, his objective was to design a computer for the consumer market that would be simple, easy to use, highly integrated, quiet and small. He wanted it to be an unashamedly plastic product. Typically, given our obsession with materials and production process, he explored different polymers, moulding technologies, colour, texture an levels of opacity.

 

Using translucent materials posed new challenges. Ive not only needed to develop new method of assembly. He found himself caring about the appearance of internal components that had previously had little impact on the product's appearance.

When researching new processes he often found himself working with different industries. He worked with a confectionery manufacturer. with their experience in the science of translucent colour control helped Ive understand the processes to ensure consistency in high volume.

Ive's attempts to make the iMac less exclusive and more accessible occurred at a number of different levels. An example of its detailing is the handle. Its primary function is t obviously to make the product easy to move, but a compelling part of that is the mmediate connection the handle makes with the user by unambiguously referencing the hand. this reference represents, at some level, an understanding beyond the product's core function. Seeing an object with a handle, you instantly understand aspects of its physical nature.

Ive wanted to cool the product by convection to make it quiet. This drove much of internal architecture, the design of the venting schemes and even the form of the handle recess

Johnathan Ive

Jonathan Ive is an English designer and the Senior Vice President of Design at Apple Inc. He was born on the 27th of February 1967 in Chingford, London. He has been the lead designer for Apple since 1997 and directly responsible for most of the company's recent hits: the iPhone, iPod, iPad and MacBook Pro. He has been honoured with many awards for his work and has been named 'The Most Influential Person in British Culture' by the BBC in 2005.



During Ive's high school years he was passionate about cars and it was this interest that led to his later carers as a designer. He eventually elected to study industrial design at Newcastle Polytechnic.

Ive's first design assignment at Apple was the iMac. He runs his own laboratory at Apple, in which he oversees the work of his appointed design team, and he is the only Apple designer with a private office. Only his core team—which consists of a team of around 15 people from Britain, America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand who have worked together for around two decades—and top Apple executives are allowed into the laboratory, as it contains all of the concepts, including prototypes, that the design team is working on.


In an interview, Ive stated that he hopes that his best work is yet to emerge and that he prefers to be identified as a maker of products, rather than a designer. He believes that there is "a resurgence of the idea of craft" in 2014.