Edible Apple

The BBC reports that Apple design guru Jony Ive has been awarded a knighthood in the UK. So while the highlight of Ive’s current Resume might be Senior VP of Industrial Design, he might want to make room for Knight Commander of the British Empire.

Upon being told of the honor, Ive said it was “absolutely thrilling” and that was “both humbled and sincerely grateful.”

Ive first began working at Apple in 1992 after a promising start in industrial design in England.

Born in February 1967, Mr Ive inherited a love of making things from his father, a silversmith, and reportedly spent much of his youth taking things apart to see how they worked.

From the age of 14, he said, he knew he was interested in drawing and making “stuff” and this led him to Northumbria Polytechnic – now Northumbria University – where he studied industrial design.

On graduation he started work as a commercial designer and then, with three friends, founded a design agency called Tangerine.

One of the clients for the agency was Apple which was so impressed with the work he did on a prototype notebook that it offered him a full-time job.

While at Apple though, Ive increasingly found himself frustrated and stymied, that is of course, until Steve Jobs returned in 1996 and, according to his biography, gave Ives more operational power at Apple than anyone, save of course for Jobs.

“There’s no one at the company who can tell Ive what to do,” said Jobs. “That’s the way I set it up.”

Ive of course has played an integral role in Apple’s resurgence, having been responsible for many of the sleek designs Apple has been lauded for. From the iPod and MacBooks to the iMac and the iPhone, all of that thoughtful industrial design you see emanating from Apple has Ive’s fingerprints all over them.

A few months ago, there was a rumor that Ive was contemplating moving back to the UK so that he could raise his children in England. The report, however, would prove to be baseless.

In any event, congrats to the newly minted SIR Jonathan Ive.