Check Out The Earliest Work Of Apple's Design Leader Jony Ive

Jony Ive wasn't always Jony Ive, Apple design God.

At one point, he was just a young British designer trying to get by. 

However, Ive was a precocious design talent, and from a young age, he was racking up awards for his design work. 

Leander Kahney's new book, JONY IVE, The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products, sheds new light on some of Ive's earliest works. We got permission from the book's publisher to run photos of some of that work. 

While Apple products today have a certain look and feel to them, Ive's early work doesn't really have a signature to it. 

This was intentional. 

Kahney highlighted this quote from Paul Kunkel in a book about Apple design: "Unlike most of his generation, Ive did not see design as an occasion to exert his ego or carry out some pres ordained style or theory. Rather, he approached each project in an almost chameleon-like way, adapting himself to the product (rather than the other way around) ... for this reason, Ive's early works have no 'signature style.'"

That said, the works turned heads. They were so good that Apple's design leader Bob Brunner spent years recruiting Ive. Eventually he landed Ive, and the rest is history. 

Here's a look at the early work, and the evolution of Ive's style.

This is a sketch of concept for an electric pen that could write in different widths and patterns.

Ive made this as an intern. It is the TX2 pen, and its big feature is a ball and clip at the top designed for people to fiddle around with. Ive realized people like to fiddle with their pens, so he encouraged it in the design.

Ive won an award in the 80s for this futuristic design of the landline phone, which he called the "Orator." He won money from the British government to travel abroad as a result of this design.