Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products Read Online Free

designer, Martin Darbyshire, Grinyer had cofounded Tangerine Design a year earlier.
    The partners were old friends. Grinyer and Darbyshire had met as students at Central Saint Martins in London, and subsequently workedtogether at the London studio of Bill Moggridge Associates. Grinyer had left to join RWG, where he met Jony, then took a job at Science Park in Cambridge, the UK’s version of Silicon Valley. While working in Science Park, Grinyer was approached by the Commtel phone company to design some new phones. Commtel wanted him as a salaried employee, but Grinyer persuaded them to let him take the job as a freelancer. With the £20,000 from Commtel, he set up shop with Darbyshire.
    “When I had the opportunity to start up a design consultancy, I asked Martin to go for a curry”—that is, they went out to an Indian restaurant—“and he immediately decided that he wanted to join me. We seem to be glued together through life!” 10 They set up shop in a front bedroom of Darbyshire’s middle-class home in Finsbury Park, in north London. Grinyer bought office supplies, including a Macintosh and a laser printer, with the money from Commtel. 11
    Initially they called themselves Landmark, after the Landmark Trust rental houses Darbyshire liked to stay in during his family vacations. They thought the name sounded properly grand, but they were promptly and aggressively sued by a Dutch company already using the name. “We tried to get them to give us a load of money to rebrand, which they didn’t do,” said Grinyer ruefully. After both sides walked away, the lawsuit died and the partners brainstormed a new name. After agreeing on the name Orange they found it, too, was already claimed, in this case by a group of designers in Denmark.
    It was Christmastime, and someone saw tangerines lying around. The name was abstract enough to mean lots of things, which the designers wanted. It also reminded them of Tangerine Dream, an early experimental electronic group that Grinyer liked.
    “Looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened because Tangerine is a much better name,” said Darbyshire. “It was easyto remember, was understandable in major European languages, and the color was a positive symbol in Asia, a key target market.” 12
    In the eighties, design partnerships like Tangerine were uncommon; freelance designers tended to set up shop alone. “In the late eighties, design graduates would have gone into what is known as an ‘industry of one,’” explained Professor Alex Milton. “It was an industry of designer–makers, or design art.” But Grinyer harbored larger ambitions.
    “A partnership felt more like a real business,” said Grinyer. “And Martin and I were always interestingly dissimilar—and complementary.”
    Based in Darbyshire’s house, Grinyer continued to work the contacts he had made working in Cambridge. They designed television accessories and hi-fi components and, thanks to some earlier work, were invited to Detroit to give a talk about in-car entertainment.
    “I was also writing articles for design magazines,” said Grinyer. “Our reputation was building.”
    Grinyer and Darbyshire made ballsy decisions about promoting themselves. They cleverly made themselves look bigger than they were: As well as writing for design magazines, they took out ads in the same magazines touting their work. The ads got attention, conveying a sense that Tangerine was winning big contracts.
    Grinyer and Darbyshire also started teaching at Saint Martins one or two days per week, which helped spread the name of their fledgling company (they taught several designers who went on to become famous, including Sam Hecht and Oliver King). They produced promotional brochures, too, in which they described their work as “products for people.” 13
    They described Tangerine’s focus as being on end users, who tended to be ignored by other design firms. “No one was speaking about end users,” said