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TheApple Industrial Design Group is theindustrial design department withinApple Inc., responsible for creating the physical appearance of all Apple products. The group was established so that Apple could design more in-house products, rather than relying on external design firms.Steve Jobs wanted to be a part of the design process which was not a very practical thing to do when utilizing external design agencies. Having an in-house design group allowed for changes to be made more efficiently, all while making it easier to maintain the secrecy of upcoming projects.
Apple Industrial Design was established in April 1977 whenSteve Jobs hiredJerry Manock to design theApple II housing. Jobs was obsessed with design and style, rumored to linger over appliances atMacy's for inspiration. Jobs and Manock set about establishing the design language that would be used by Apple for its first 10 years.[1]
In addition to the Apple II, Manock came to manage Apple Design Guild which consisted of a loose band of in-house designers, among them Bill Dresselhaus—responsible for the Lisa—and Rob Gemmell—responsible for theApple IIe andApple IIc. It was from this group that a project called "Snow White" emerged. The importance that Jobs put on appearance led to a desire to begin the search for a "world-class" designer or design team to give Apple a unique and uniform design language. It was Manock's suggestion that it be made a contest. The company proceeded to solicit designers from the pages of magazines.[2]
It was out of this contest thatHartmut Esslinger and his team atFrog Design came to Apple and created a uniquedesign language that took the project's code name and helped establish Apple with a seriouscorporate image.[3] Though Esslinger originally created a design for the Macintosh, it wasn't until theApple IIc, designed with Rob Gemmell, that Apple would first introduce the new design language. From the introduction of the Apple II through theMacintosh Plus, Apple's products favored a beige-like color scheme of differing shades. The Apple IIc was the first to introduce a product with a lighter, creamy off-white color, known in-house as "Fog" (though Esslinger originally argued for bright white), a color that would persist in allSnow White design language products until the introduction of theApple IIGS in late 1986, which marked a turning point in the unification of Apple products. Apple selected a warm gray color they called "Platinum" for the IIGS and all subsequent desktop computers until the introduction of theiMac in 1998. (A dark gray color was adopted for the PowerBook line of laptops and its peripherals).[4]
The originalMacintosh was designed byJerry Manock and Terry Oyama with guidance from Steve Jobs. In doing so, they unwittingly created an enduring iconic design. Though variously redressed in "Snow White" details (such as theMacintosh SE), all the way to the translucent iMac, there is a legacy imparted by the original Macintosh design. Having worked 90-hour weeks, Manock and the rest of the Mac team were exhausted, and he failed to register the Macintoshes in time for the design award consideration. Esslinger would not make the same mistake with the SE and ultimately received the recognition denied Manock, which often led to Esslinger being credited with the original design of the Macintosh, a perception Esslinger andFrog Design always corrected. However, by the end of 1985, Steve Jobs resigned from Apple and Hartmut Esslinger and his Frog Design team followed, later working with Jobs atNeXT.[5]
By the early 1990s, Apple discovered that the Snow White language that had served them so well through the 80s was being copied by its generic IBM PC competitors, causing Apple to lose some of its unique identity. With the move away from Frog Design, Apple chose to bring all industrial design in-house by creating the Apple Industrial Design Group, headed byRobert Brunner except for portable computer devices design projects led byKazuo Kawasaki. Though many of the new designs reflected the legacy of Esslinger's Snow White language, the new design group began to rapidly move in its direction, which can be clearly seen in landmark products of the Espresso language such as theMacintosh Color Classic.[6] The list of innovative designs which clearly defined Apple products in the marketplace continued through the 90s.
The return of Steve Jobs in 1997 along with the appointment of designerJonathan Ive (who had been working for Apple since 1992[7]) as senior vice president of industrial design, ushered in a new era for Apple's design, drawing heavily on the design philosophy ofDieter Rams for Braun, and adding vibrant color and translucent details. The launch of theiMac in 1998 also drew on some of the iconic elements of the original Macintosh, such as the all-in-one format and top-mounted handle.
The successive design language adopted by Apple can be split into two aspects: a white or black color scheme, usually with a glossy texture and plastic cases; and abead blasted aluminum and glass look. The former was exclusively used for consumer products, such as theMacBook and iPod, while the latter was mainly used in professional products such as the MacBook Pro and Mac Pro. However, more recent revisions of the iMac, iPad, iPhone, and iPod lines have adopted the aluminum of the professional line with sleek black elements. Apple developed aunibody water-milling process to achieve sharp lines and graceful curves as well as end-to-end structural stability from their aluminum products. Both looks often use basic rectilinear forms modified with slight contours and rounded edges.
in 2019, Jonathan Ive left Apple, and started his new design officeLoveFrom with longtime collaboratorMarc Newson.[8] Following Ive's departure, there was significant turnover in the design group and its leadership. Evans Hankey took over as head of hardware design in June 2019 and later held the role of vice president of industrial design,[9] but on October 21, 2022, Apple announced that she would depart the company.[10] The design team began reporting directly into Chief Operating OfficerJeff Williams; in 2024, Molly Anderson was named as the industrial design leader, with most of the industrial design team reporting into her.[11]
| Designer | Dates |
|---|---|
| Bill Dresselhaus | 1979–1983 |
| Terry Oyama | 1980–1983 |
| Rob Gemmell | 1981–1989 |
| Gavin Ivester | 1987–1992 (1981–1992) |
| Hartmut Esslinger | 1982–1989 |
| Richard Jordan | 1978–1990 |
| Jim Stewart | 1980–1984, 1987–1994 |
| Ray Riley | 1988–1995 |
| Robert Brunner | 1989–1997 |
| Susanne Pierce Maddux | 1990–1996 |
| Kazuo Kawasaki | 1990–1991 |
| Masamichi Udagawa | 1992–1995 |
| Daniele De Iuliis | 1989–2019[12] |
| SirJonathan Ive | 1992–2019 |
| Christopher Stringer | 1997–2017[13] |
| Imran Chaudhri | 1995–2017 |
| Eugene Whang | 1999–2021 |
| Shin Nishibori | 2002–2012 |
| Rico Zorkendorfer | 2004–2019[12] |
| Miklu Silvanto | 2011–2019[12] |
| Julian Honig | 2010–2019[12] |
| Marc Newson | 2014–2019 |
| Evans Hankey | –2023[14] |
| Sudip Shrestha | –2023[15] |
| Shota Aoyagi | ?–2023[16] |
| Molly Anderson | –present[17] |
| Richard Howarth | 1996[18]–present |
| Alan Dye | 2006–present |
| Nic Henderson | 2017–present |
| Abidur Chowdhury | 2019-present |
| Timeline of Apple Inc. products |
|---|
 See also:Timeline of the Apple II series andList of Mac models
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Shota Aoyagi, another member of Ive's storied industrial design team at Apple, has also exited. He just started at LoveFrom.
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