Skip to main content

Jony and Marc's (RED) Auction - Sir Jonathan Ive, Marc Newson and Bono


Marc Newson, Bono and Sir Jonathan Ive. Photograph courtesy of Bono's (RED).

 In a few hours at Sotheby's in New York, Apple's design genius, Sir Jonathan Ive (better known as Jony), and his longtime designer pal, Marc Newson, will present an incredible selection of extremely beautiful objects that they have curated and/or designed for Bono's Product (RED), the charity Bono established in 2006 with Bobby Shriver to raise awareness of and to work to eliminate HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Check out the Sotheby's online catalog here.
Among the goodies up for grabs are an exquisite one-off Leica Digital Rangefinder Camera that Ive and Newson have collaborated on - estimated to be worth at least half a million dollars (I wish I were bidding for that!) - a truly elegant Steinway Grand Piano (estimate $150-200,000) and, one of Jony's own groundbreaking creations, the new Mac Pro in red (estimate $40-60,000)!
The one-off (RED) Leica Digital Rangefinder Camera.

The (RED) Steinway & Sons Grand Piano.


The (RED) Mac Pro - a stunning design by Ive.


Proceeds from the sale will be donated to The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the world's largest financier of anti-AIDS, TB and malaria programs, which according to Wikipedia "by mid-2012 [had] approved funding $22.9 billion that supports more than 1,000 programs in 151 countries." 

 Bono has devoted enormous time and energy to Product (RED) - which has proven both highly popular and occasionally controversial as a form of "ethical consumerism" (this article in New Political Science, Volume 31, Issue 2, 2009, argues that it offers "a pragmatic solution to augmenting funds for AIDS treatment in Africa") - and is confident that the continued focus on the battle against HIV and AIDS will ultimately help eliminate the disease.

A personal favorite: a fabulous typewriter originally designed by Ettore Sottsass. Photograph courtesy of Gizmodo.com


For more information on the auction tonight, please visit Product (RED)'s website, check out the Sotheby's online catalog for the auction, and watch this video, featuring Bono, Jony and Marc:



I wish the auction - and its charitable intent - great success!

 On a personal note, we met Jony Ive a couple of years back at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, as a seventh birthday treat kindly arranged by our good friend (and Jony's), Stephen Fry, for our tech-savvy son, Hudson.

 Jony was wonderfully kind and generous with his time to Hudson - and has stayed in touch since - and you can read the post I wrote about our visit at the time here:

Hudson, Apple and Sir Jony Ive (revisited)
Apple's beautiful address. Photograph Copyright © 2011 Alexander Chow-Stuart.
"I knew that Apple, one of the world's most secretive companies, doesn't do public tours - but fortunately one of our best friends, the wondrously gifted British writer, director, actor, comedian and Mac evangelist, Stephen Fry, not only knows Steve Jobs but also the genius British industrial designer, Jonathan Ive, who created the mind-bending and world-changing beauty and technological simplicity/complexity of the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad (with help from equally inspired hardware and software engineers)."
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Please note that for reasons I have not been able to solve yet, I have enormous difficulty posting replies to comments - so I apologize if I don't reply!

Popular posts from this blog

The High Tower Apartments and The Long Goodbye

Photograph by Dwayne Moser. This beautiful apartment complex in Los Angeles is called the Hightower or High Tower Complex (the High Tower name refers to the central elevator, I believe), and was designed in 1935-1936 by architect  Carl Kay - and made famous in 1973 by my favorite film, Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (see Why I Love Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye ). Although Altman used the building as Philip Marlowe's apartment in his somewhat post-modern Long Goodbye (the film plays with references to Old Hollywood and opens and closes with the song, Hooray For Hollywood ), the building has another direct connection to Raymond Chandler. It was apparently the inspiration for Chandler in his book, The High Window (the first Chandler novel I ever read), in which Chandler describes the residence of Philip Marlowe as being on the cliffs above High Tower Drive in a building with a fancy elevator tower. (Thanks to the Society of Architectural Historians Southern...
4 comments
Read more

Andrew Hale and Sade

Sade in concert in San Jose. All concert photos  Copyright  © 2011  Alexander Chow-Stuart. On Thursday evening, we saw our longtime friend Andrew Hale perform with Sade at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, in one of the most beautifully conceived and produced concert performances I have ever seen. Sade is a rare musician, in that she and the band only write, record and tour every eight to ten years, so that in a very real sense you can measure your life by her. The band's music is always fresh and always newly conceived - for their previous album, Lovers Rock , they stripped everything down musically to a minimalist sound and banished the saxophone that had been so much a part of Sade's heavily soul- and jazz-influenced style. The latest album, Soldier of Love , released in 2010, is one of the most tender, moving collections of songs yet, from the astonishingly beautiful Morning Bird , which features exquisite keyboards from Andrew, to the soulful, retro, r...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hyperbole And A Half - Why I'll Never Be An Adult

All images copyright 2010-2012 Allie and Hyperbole And A Half. These images are from one of my absolute favorite online comic strips/blogs/sites, Hyperbole And A Half by Allie . This particular post is called: This Is Why I'll Never Be An Adult - and these are just a few selected panes from a very funny and telling sequence: To check out the entire strip, go to this particular link for Hyperbole And A Half.   You might also want to check out the Hyperbole And A Half Store , which has many goodies such as this wonderful Bird T-shirt . Other designs can be applied to whole variety of products, such as T-shirts, mugs and iPhone cases (please note that not all designs are available for every product). I love the Bird T-shirt  because it makes me think of our much adored lovebird, Miso, who I'm certain spends a great deal of his life squawking these words in a language we can't comprehend because we're too stupid: Please visit Hyperbole And A ...
Post a Comment
Read more