A bit of a shakeup is taking place on July 1st at Apple. Jony Ive, the company’s Senior Vice President of Design, will hand over his day-to-day managerial responsibilities for both the industrial and software design units to two new leaders. But Ive is not going anywhere. He has been named Chief Design Officer, a new role that will allow him to use his design chops not only on the hardware and software groups he already leads but also on Apple’s product packaging, retail stores and the company’s new campus.
If it touches design, Ive will have his say. Proving once more that no detail is too small, he even designed the new tables for Caffé Macs, the cafeteria at the company’s current headquarters.
Picking up the managerial slack for Ive will be two long-standing Apple employees. Richard Howarth, part of the iPhone team since development of the first model, has been named VP of Industrial Design and will focus on the hardware side. Alan Dye, who was involved in both the interface design of iOS 7 and the new Watch OS, has been named VP of User Interface Design and will focus on the software side.
The news was first broken by The Telegraph but later confirmed in an email sent by Apple CEO Tim Cook to employees and obtained by 9to5Mac:
Team,
I have exciting news to share with you today. I am happy to announce that Jony Ive is being promoted to the newly created position of Chief Design Officer at Apple.
Jony is one of the most talented and accomplished designers of his generation, with an astonishing 5000 design and utility patents to his name. His new role is a reflection of the scope of work he has been doing at Apple for some time. Jony’s design responsibilities have expanded from hardware and, more recently, software UI to the look and feel of Apple retail stores, our new campus in Cupertino, product packaging and many other parts of our company.
Design is one of the most important ways we communicate with our customers, and our reputation for world-class design differentiates Apple from every other company in the world. As Chief Design Officer, Jony will remain responsible for all of our design, focusing entirely on current design projects, new ideas and future initiatives. On July 1, he will hand off his day-to-day managerial responsibilities of ID and UI to Richard Howarth, our new vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, our new vice president of User Interface Design.
Richard, Alan and Jony have been working together as colleagues and friends for many years. Richard has been a member of the Design team for two decades, and in that time he has been a key contributor to the design of each generation of iPhone, Mac, and practically every other Apple product. Alan started at Apple nine years ago on the Marcom team, and helped Jony build the UI team which collaborated with ID, Software Engineering and countless other groups on groundbreaking projects like iOS 7, iOS 8 and Apple Watch.
Please join me in congratulating these three exceptionally talented designers on their new roles at Apple.
Tim
Ive assumes his new role on July 1, 2015.
Sources : The Telegraph // 9to5Mac