Jonathan Ive designs Leica camera for Red charity

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24458783

by yesplorer • 13 years ago

24 41 13 years ago

bbc.co.uk

jeanjq• 13 years ago

I'm always uneasy with the idea of (RED) charity: the message is "save the world by buying stuff". It's just consumerism with a bit of karma, no?

vor_3• 13 years ago

I don't understand why you're uneasy about it.

k-mcgrady• 13 years ago

I think it's more "you're going to buy this product anyway, so why not go with the model that will help a charity?".

randomafrican• 13 years ago

ddfu• 13 years ago

Sure, Product(RED) is designed to help you feel better about buying stuff you don't really need, but the high marketing spend is hardly much different than other charities. It's a "why not?" but don't assume you're done helping others for the year since you bought a (RED) iPad!

If you want to donate efficiently, may I suggest typing :help uganda into vim?

corin_2• 13 years ago

The camera took 85 days and more than 735 hours to manufacture. During that time more than 550 models and 1,000 prototype parts were made and tested; 55 engineers worked on the process.

And

It is expected to fetch between $500,000 (£312,000) and $750,000.

If they took the cost of that time and work and donated it directly to the charity how much would it have been?

ebiester• 13 years ago

Ah, but it's not a direct equivalent. Do you think Jony Ive's contract with Apple allows moonlighting?

corin_2• 13 years ago

I didn't mean he should have sold his time to another company..

vor_3• 13 years ago

Obviously, not as much as they expect it to make in sales, or they wouldn't have done it.

fein• 13 years ago

85 days and more than 735 hours
more than 550 models and 1,000 prototype parts were made and tested... 55 engineers worked on the process.

Uhh... I think they spent more developing this than what it will fetch. Wouldn't it have been better to just donate the money?

A 500k donation at the expense of that many resources...

Osmium2• 13 years ago

You assume they aren't getting anything else from that. Presumably it also counts as R&D for future products.

sp332• 13 years ago

Reciprocally, Project (RED) also gets Ive's name to draw attention.

vor_3• 13 years ago

Do you really think they didn't consider this when making the device? Obviously, they gauged interest and determined that they'll make more money for charity by selling it.

anigbrowl• 13 years ago

Not necessarily. They also get good publicity out of it, so the cost is weighed against (value of charitable donation) + (value of equivalent advertsing/marketing campaign).

abat• 13 years ago

It's called marketing. Ive "designing" a limited edition Leica is like Murakami being involved with Louis Vuitton.

Lecia needs people to believe that their cameras are worth a lot of money and involve a much greater amount of design work and craftsmanship than a standard Canon.

Osmium2• 13 years ago

For the curious, Murakami = Takashi Murakami.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takashi_Murakami

sarreph• 13 years ago

I think they just wanted to make a bloody awesome camera, that also happens to generate money for charity.

sgustard• 13 years ago

"Aluminium case with tens of thousands of individual perforations" sounds so much fancier than "metal screen".

trafficlight• 13 years ago

I would've also accepted the term 'mesh'.

gilgoomesh• 13 years ago

Metal screens are just stamped or rolled sheet metal, while these perforations are made by a CNC mill from the same piece of aluminium as the rest of the body.

Might not mean anything to a layperson but watching a CNC mill make thousands of precision perforations would be quite a sight.

hop• 13 years ago

Those perforations are lasered out, like they do the MBP speaker grill/holes.

jacquesm• 13 years ago

Those do not look milled to me.

buro9• 13 years ago

Looking at that, without reading the text, I thought immediately that it looked like Marc Newson's work rather than Jony Ive's.

Then I read the text:

Apple's feted design chief teamed up with industrial designer Marc Newson

I would say that Marc did most of this, and Jony either just created the collaboration and put his name to it, or his touch was reasonably light.

The only part that really looks like Ive's stamp is the perforated aluminium. Every other curve, the buttons and balance of the design, scream Newson.

huxley• 13 years ago

Really? Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see it, there is a Dieter Rams influence to it that says Jony Ive more than Marc Newson to me.

aray2• 13 years ago

It really screamed Rams to me as well (much more than Ive), even more than Newson as well.

It doesn't look to me like a Rams/Braun product though, but a product that's trying to be one.

veemjeem• 13 years ago

It looks more like an Ive design than a Newson. Newson designed a Pentax camera last year, and it doesn't seem like any of those design elements made it into this Leica camera design.

9999• 13 years ago

The shutter speed dial really looks like Ive's work to me. Although it's hard to say. This Leica bears absolutely no resemblance to Newson's Pentax K-01, but perhaps that's just because the K-01 was a camera that was actually intended to be used rather than stuffed away in a billionaire Leica fanatic's collection.

cookingrobot• 13 years ago

Newson seems to really like perforation: http://cdn0.lostateminor.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/marc... http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2010/09/dzn_Nike-Zvezdochka... http://www.thebohmerian.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Moder... http://25.media.tumblr.com/tDKhyxB37qrkb3g3wZIeQyQwo1_500.jp...

davidgerard• 13 years ago

The charity sector looks forward to a Bono-led recovery

RICH PARADISE, Bahamas, Monday (UNN) — The (RED) anti-AIDS marketing initiative has announced its first annual results.

The initiative, fronted by Bono, seeks to promote a "co-philanthropy" model, wherein companies can do good works by selling products they were going to sell anyway, but with a little red bit on to show how much they care. Really. They care.

"We've worked hard on the model," said Bobby Shriver, (RED) CEO. "It's been a brand launch designed to get people used to the idea of an entirely new fund raising model. Because (RED) is explicitly NOT a charity, we encourage our partners to go about their business including their marketing. Gap, Apple, Sprint and other sales people are meeting Americans and explaining that 5,500 Africans dying daily of AIDS is preventable."

"The publicity has been fantastically effective," said Bono from his Caribbean island. "Steven Spielberg smiling down from billboards in San Francisco, Christy Turlington striking a yoga pose in a New Yorker ad, me cruising Chicago's Michigan Avenue with Oprah Winfrey, eagerly snapping up Red products, Chris Rock appearing in Motorola TV spots saying 'Use Red, nobody's dead', and the Red room at the Grammy Awards. This is something to be really proud of."

Zombie Steve Jobs also voiced his support. "I don't see how else you can assuage your OVERWHELMING GUILT at your comfortable life and income without a Red U2 iPod on your belt. Imagine the SHAME if people saw you with a plain white or black one. The SHAME."

The stunning return to AIDS charities for 2006 was $18,000 on over $100 million in marketing and consumer spend. "The only way is up!" said Shriver. "Onward and upward!"

"Buy more stuff!" said Jobs.

slinlee• 13 years ago

Like so many apple products, it probably feels great to touch, but bad to hold.

DigitalJack2• 13 years ago

I suppose people that buy these will just put them on a shelf, but if not, those perforations are going to fill with garbage.

eCa• 13 years ago

There will be only one.

DigitalJack2• 13 years ago

Oh, I see now. I misread the part about 550 models thinking it meant they produced and were selling 550 of these.

zokier• 13 years ago

How the hell it that top selection wheel supposed to be operated? Overall, it looks pretty similar to the normal Leica M, but with Apple-style all-aluminium coloring and more rounded corners.

001sky• 13 years ago

A leica fan and his money are easily seperated

-- source: leica owner

vparikh2• 13 years ago

This to me does not really strike me as some Mr. Ives would have had a large amount of time in, and quite frankly am shocked that he put his name on this.

The Leica M has had pretty much the same dimensions and design for since the 50s (save to major departures the Leica CL and the Leica M5). Note that I am referring to the analog film version and not the modern digital M8 and later incarnations design, along with the Fender Stratocaster are the closest thing to perfection anyone has come up with.

The Stratocaster is a discussion for another time. In the case of the Leica, it is the best design because it distills the essence of the photographic expression and builds the product around that. The controls are simple. You have a shutter speed dial, a film crank, a shots taken indicator. Aperture control is on the lens barrel. Any photographer can pick up a Leica M and know how it works intuitively. The controls fall right where they should. Its been 50 years, and no one really has come up with a better interface to take a picture.

This design throughs all of that out the window. From the looks of the picture, it doesn't look very comfortable to hold. It seems to rounded, and the "cheese greater" design is just asking for dust/environmental problems. A well used Leica looks even more desirable with age, this would just look hideous. This design just lost all of the elegance that 50 years of incremental design bestowed on the Leica M and turned it into something that looks like a Braun product.

Then lets move to the usability -- whats with the recessed dials??? the whole point of the dial placement ABOVE the top plate is so that the photographer can operate all the controls via his thumb without taking his mind away from the act of taking a picture. This completely violates that principle. Not to mention all the ergonomic evolution the engineers at Leica spent so much time agonizing over.

Don't get me wrong, yes I do love the Leica M. I am not a zealot by any chance. I don't claim they do everything but what they do -- they have perfected the design. And here they just through all of that out the window.

If the goal was to make an advancement on the design, I would say take a close look at the Fuji X100s. It has taken the Leica ethic and bridged it beautifully with the modern digital age. In fact I will say the Fuji X100s is the first classic of the digital age.

axman6• 13 years ago

It's also a one of a kind and may never actually be used, but instead displayed in someone's private collection. Who cares if it's not particularly usable, it was not designed to be used from what I can tell.

vparikh2• 13 years ago

That is my point exactly! As you stated, it is not designed to be used. I have huge respect for Jonathan Ives. Steve Jobs is quoted as saying "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." I think Mr. Ives forgot about that when he was working on the Leica. And that is why I am surprised he let his name go on such a poor design

snarkAttack• 13 years ago

  It is expected to fetch between $500,000 (£312,000) 
  and $750,000.

  The special edition Leica M camera features an anodised 
  aluminium case with tens of thousands of individual 
  perforations.

  The camera took 85 days and more than 735 hours 
  to manufacture.

  During that time more than 550 models and 1,000 
  prototype parts were made and tested; 55 engineers 
  worked on the process.

The best part about writing for the BBC without a byline is that no one can criticize you as an individual, when you start spewing hyperbole and completely unrelated statistics in an illogical fashion, for the purpose of making retarded embellishments that go over like a lead zeppelin.

But hey, it's for charity, so the Madison Avenue bullshit artistry is (almost) excusable.

exo_duz• 13 years ago

Ive doing what he does best. Industrial and hardware design.

I still think there are some question marks about his software design skills as some of the things in iOS7 is very badly thought out such as the new date pickers.

Jonathan Ive designs Leica camera for Red charity

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