Apple design guru wins National Design Award

Apple's design guru Jonathan Ive this week won the 2007 National Design Award for product design. Cooper-Hewitt director Paul Warwick Thompson on Tuesday announced the winners and finalists of the 2007 National Design Awards, giving the Product Design Award to "the individual or firm for exceptional and exemplary work in the design of consumer goods, technology, or home and office furnishings." Ive, the release said brought design "into the public consciousness in an unprecedented way." He was selected for his innovative design work over the past 11 years on Apple products, including the iPod, iPod nano, candy-colored iMacs, the iBook, and other products. The nominations were solicited from a committee of more than 800 leading designers, educators, journalists, cultural figures and corporate leaders from every state in the nation.

"Jonathan Ive is the senior vice president of industrial design at Apple Inc., where since 1996 he has led a product design team widely regarded as one of the industry’s best," according to the bio presented on the website. "Ive’s streamlined design aesthetic, combined with a strong knowledge of the engineering process, has brought design into the public consciousness in an unprecedented way."

The eighth annual Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will celebrate outstanding achievement in design this fall with its annual National Design Awards, which recognize excellence across various disciplines, including architecture, communications, fashion, interior, landscape and product design. The Award recipients will be honored at an Oct. 18 gala dinner at Cooper- Hewitt. Mrs. Laura Bush serves as the Honorary Patron for this year’s National Design Awards.

“Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Awards continue to provide a vital platform for the recognition and discussion of the role of design in our everyday lives,” said Thompson. “We are delighted to recognize this year’s accomplished group of honorees, who represent the very best in design and contribute immensely to a diverse range of fields.”

"Creating some of the most innovative products of the past decade, ranging from the whimsical, candy-colored iMac to the spare iBook to the now iconic iPod, Ive has not only made complex technological devices user-friendly, he has designed sculptural, desirable objects."

The NDM also noted that Ive was named Designer of the Year (2003) by the Design Museum of London, awarded the title Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts, and was included as a finalist in this category in 2006. Apple was featured in the 2000 and 2006 National Design Triennials and won the 2000 Corporate Achievement Award.

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