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Dedication: Only 5 people have left Jony Ive’s team, 3 because they died

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Fast Company is currently running an anecdotal series on Apple’s design department from when Ive first joined Apple to present day. The series is being published in separate articles to mark different eras of Apple’s products, finishing on September 10th, with the later articles focusing on Apple’s more recent work such as the iPad, the background to which is less well-known. Although much of the story has been told many times before, there are some fresh tidbits.

Of particular note, Fast Company says that over the entire course of Ive’s leadership, only five designers have ever left Ive’s team with only two actually quitting, the other three simply died.

So Fast Company set out to remedy that deficiency. It wasn’t easy. Precious few designers have left Sir Jonathan Ive’s industrial design group since he took over in 1996: Two quit; three died.

This is an astonishing drop-out rate for such a long period of time. In late 2012, Ive showed his appreciation for his group by bringing his entire team to London to collect prestigious awards for design and art direction.
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