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As part of a guest editor at a British magazine, former Apple design chief Johnny Ive described in detail the dozen tools he finds indispensable, from a vintage leather pencil case to a $ 5,645 toner player.
Johnny Ive is a guest editor of a special issue of How to Spend It magazine, part of the British Financial Times. Describing it as a “craft problem”, Ive talked to designers and craftsmen, and described his own favorite tools in detail.
“Perhaps expected,” he writes in the full magazine, “it became more of a personal issue of How to Spend It, as I brought together many people, objects and places that I love.”
Some of these design objects and tools are personal, which I’ve probably been using for many years. Where the tools are available for purchase now, the magazine includes typical current prices.
It is not clear if Ive sorted them in any order. The magazine simply says that he chose items “for making, marking, measuring and carrying with him every day.”
- Torque wrench, $ 562 from the British company Snap-On
- Titar Linn from titanium Ekos SE, $ 5,645 from Basil Audio
- Set with hexadecimal L-key with color code, from $ 3.69 from Wiha
- Paper folder from the British H. Webber
- Leather measuring tape Hermes In the Pocket, $ 530
- Vintage brass folding magnifier
- Vintage Montegrappa pen
- Graf Von Faber-Castell platinum tire, $ 100 from Jackson’s Art
- Vintage leather pencil case from visvim
- Mitutoyo Universal Conveyor 6 inches, $ 326
- Depth micrometer Starrett 440Z-3RL, $ 355
- Wempe Navigator II ship’s clock and weather station, $ 1960
Upper: Ekos SE Titanium Linnar, $ 5,645 (Source: Basil Audio.) Bottom: Leather In the Pocket measuring tape, $ 530 (source: Hermes)
I’ve said nothing about any of these tools. But in a separate article in the magazine, he talks about how the tools we use are more than just tools to get the job done.
“There is beauty and joy in machines and tools,” he says. “They are no longer just a means to an end. I think there is an inherent elegance in an effective tool that usually leads to curious beauty.”
I also complain that “there was a time when we were able and motivated to maintain and take care of the products”. He says that “apart from just buying something, we took care of it, which is obviously better than recycling.”
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