Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products Read Online Free Page A
Author: Leander Kahney
Darbyshire. “It was all about ‘how to deliver things reliably,’not about ‘what should it or could it be?’ This was the fundamental thing behind Tangerine that I believe we all bought into and worked hard to develop.”
The combined marketing strategies worked. “My aim was for us to be among the three most naturally sought-after consultancies to provide advice on product design, along with IDEO and Seymourpowell,” said Grinyer. By 1990, they had enough steady work to move out of Darbyshire’s front bedroom to a real office in Hoxton, in the East End of London, in a converted warehouse. It was just half of one floor, rented to them by a female architect they knew; the timing was right. “My wife was also about to give birth to our first son, so we needed our big bedroom back,” said Darbyshire.
The studio was a classic postindustrial loft, comprising a big, long room, with raw plaster walls and rough wooden floors. The designers set the decorating tone with some Philippe Starck chairs and IKEA desks and shelves. The Hoxton neighborhood today is a trendy area of central London, but two decades ago, tougher times had left a lot of abandoned and derelict light-industrial buildings. Hoxton was also home to lunchtime strip clubs—more like strip pubs, this being London—that catered to workers in The City, London’s nearby financial district. Grinyer’s car was broken into all the time; his radio got swiped, his tires cut. 14 The London Apprentice pub at the end of Hoxton Street near the studio was a big gay pub in the area, which regularly had ABBA nights that attracted a lot of guests in silver jumpsuits. It was a lively neighborhood.
Jony arrived at Tangerine as a third partner just after Tangerine moved to Hoxton—although he was twenty-three and barely out of design college, Grinyer knew “there was no question of Jony being a junior.” Jony and his wife, Heather, bought a small flat not far away in Blackheath, southeast London.
When Jony joined Tangerine, Grinyer and Darbyshire were happynot just to get his immense design talent but a big client: Jony brought with him Ideal Standard, the UK giant in toilets and bathroom fixtures that asked for him personally back at RWG. But at Tangerine, Jony worked on everything, from power tools to combs, and televisions to toilets. At Tangerine, the designers worked on everything collaboratively.
The work was consistent but not especially challenging or prestigious. Tangerine occasionally got commissions from big corporations like Hitachi or Ford, but most of the work was on small projects for random, obscure businesses. “It was a very competitive time for design firms,” explained Northumbria’s Professor Rodgers. “Companies tended not to specialize. They did everything. They worked on many things—packaging for shampoo, a new motorcycle, the interior of a train. They had to work on everything.” 15
Many of the smaller firms had very finite budgets and little or no experience in working with design consultants. Typically, they expected to spend just a few thousand pounds while Tangerine, still building its business, needed to bill much larger amounts. Often Tangerine’s proposals ran into the tens of thousands of pounds, way above their prospective clients’ budgets. As a result they wouldn’t get the work.
The partners had little choice but to take the rejections philosophically. “Most work in the UK at that time was heavily about engineering, rather than user research or concept design work, so we were ahead of the market a bit,” said Darbyshire. “We had, on one hand, to flex and work with smaller companies designing smaller products all the way to manufacture, at the same time as trying to win business from the Asia and the U.S., and grow.”
To attract and keep clients, the Tangerine designers worked to make the studio look busier than it was. They remembered a trick that RWG had used: When executives from a car company came to visit,
The combined marketing strategies worked. “My aim was for us to be among the three most naturally sought-after consultancies to provide advice on product design, along with IDEO and Seymourpowell,” said Grinyer. By 1990, they had enough steady work to move out of Darbyshire’s front bedroom to a real office in Hoxton, in the East End of London, in a converted warehouse. It was just half of one floor, rented to them by a female architect they knew; the timing was right. “My wife was also about to give birth to our first son, so we needed our big bedroom back,” said Darbyshire.
The studio was a classic postindustrial loft, comprising a big, long room, with raw plaster walls and rough wooden floors. The designers set the decorating tone with some Philippe Starck chairs and IKEA desks and shelves. The Hoxton neighborhood today is a trendy area of central London, but two decades ago, tougher times had left a lot of abandoned and derelict light-industrial buildings. Hoxton was also home to lunchtime strip clubs—more like strip pubs, this being London—that catered to workers in The City, London’s nearby financial district. Grinyer’s car was broken into all the time; his radio got swiped, his tires cut. 14 The London Apprentice pub at the end of Hoxton Street near the studio was a big gay pub in the area, which regularly had ABBA nights that attracted a lot of guests in silver jumpsuits. It was a lively neighborhood.
Jony arrived at Tangerine as a third partner just after Tangerine moved to Hoxton—although he was twenty-three and barely out of design college, Grinyer knew “there was no question of Jony being a junior.” Jony and his wife, Heather, bought a small flat not far away in Blackheath, southeast London.
When Jony joined Tangerine, Grinyer and Darbyshire were happynot just to get his immense design talent but a big client: Jony brought with him Ideal Standard, the UK giant in toilets and bathroom fixtures that asked for him personally back at RWG. But at Tangerine, Jony worked on everything, from power tools to combs, and televisions to toilets. At Tangerine, the designers worked on everything collaboratively.
The work was consistent but not especially challenging or prestigious. Tangerine occasionally got commissions from big corporations like Hitachi or Ford, but most of the work was on small projects for random, obscure businesses. “It was a very competitive time for design firms,” explained Northumbria’s Professor Rodgers. “Companies tended not to specialize. They did everything. They worked on many things—packaging for shampoo, a new motorcycle, the interior of a train. They had to work on everything.” 15
Many of the smaller firms had very finite budgets and little or no experience in working with design consultants. Typically, they expected to spend just a few thousand pounds while Tangerine, still building its business, needed to bill much larger amounts. Often Tangerine’s proposals ran into the tens of thousands of pounds, way above their prospective clients’ budgets. As a result they wouldn’t get the work.
The partners had little choice but to take the rejections philosophically. “Most work in the UK at that time was heavily about engineering, rather than user research or concept design work, so we were ahead of the market a bit,” said Darbyshire. “We had, on one hand, to flex and work with smaller companies designing smaller products all the way to manufacture, at the same time as trying to win business from the Asia and the U.S., and grow.”
To attract and keep clients, the Tangerine designers worked to make the studio look busier than it was. They remembered a trick that RWG had used: When executives from a car company came to visit,
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