Sir Jony Ive, the former Apple designer responsible for iconic products such as the iPhone and iMac, has returned to the realm of design with an unusual project: he created the red nose for this year’s Comic Relief charity event. year in the UK.
Comic Relief is a British comedy-themed charity that raises money for a variety of causes. It is responsible for the annual Red Nose Day telethon, featuring comedians and other celebrities, and members of the public are encouraged to buy a red nose to wear on the day, which takes place on Friday March 17 this year. The nose design is refined every year.
As you’d expect from the man behind so many iconic products, Ive’s design is ambitious and something of a departure for him and the nose. With the ability to compress into a flat crescent, it’s largely made of delicately folded paper – the charity says the materials are 95% plant-based, after agreeing in 2021 to stop manufacturing the nose from single-use plastic – and slightly resembles the mesh of the HomePod.
comic relief
Not that we can be sure of the importance I had in the very design of the first HomePod model. He ran the Cupertino design studio until 2019 and nominally remained associated with the company as a consultant until last year. But it’s suspected he began to withdraw from the high-pressure aspects of the job as early as 2015 when he was given the title of design director with a looser role; at the time we interpreted that as semi-retired, realistically he may not have designed much since the first Apple Watch.
But he seems to have gone all-in with a red nose. In a press release from the charity, the red nose “was a fabulously complex little object to design and manufacture and involved our entire team”. A tongue-in-cheek video meant to mimic a dramatic product ad doesn’t feature Ive’s voiceover, but calls her design the “most perfect nose in history.”
You can buy the Ive Red Nose, which is not suitable for children under seven, for £2.50 (around $3 in today’s conversion). It is also available on Amazon UK but is currently out of stock.
Note that there is a separate Comic Relief charity in the United States (known as Comic Relief Inc) and a separate Red Nose Day. Unfortunately, Ive’s design will not be used for this event.
