From MacBooks to diamonds: how Jony Ive created a US$250,000 ring to auction for charity
The ring, produced in collaboration with designer Marc Newson, will be sold by Sotheby’s in December in aid of the (RED) campaign fighting Aids in Africa
After designing Apple’s iPod, iMac, MacBook Air, iPhone and iPad, Jony Ive, the technology company’s British chief design officer, has now created a diamond ring, which will be sold in aid of charity.
He has collaborated once again with revered Australian industrial designer Marc Newson on the project in aid of (RED), a non-profit organisation that teams up with iconic brands to raise money to fight HIV and Aids in eight African countries.
The ring is expected to sell for between US$150,000 and US$250,000 when it goes under the hammer at Sotheby’s online (Red) Auction, which is now open for bids up until December 8.
Inspired by the unibody design of Apple’s MacBook notebook computers, the diamond ring has been cut from a single diamond, with some of its facets measuring less than a few hundred micrometers.
The centre of the ring will be custom-finished later, using a high-powered one-micrometer-thick water jet and laser beam.
It will be cut and smoothed so that it perfectly fits the finger of its new owner – up to a United States ring size of 5, equivalent to an inner diameter of 0.618 of an inch (15.7 millimetres), or a finger circumference of 1.944 inches (49.3 millimetres).
When it is finished the ring will feature between 2,000 and 3,000 facets, a feat that has never been achieved on a single diamond.
In the past, Ive and Newson have collaborated on items, such as creating an aluminium-clad work desk, a retro-looking Leica camera and a one-of-kind red MacBook Pro, with all of the items auctioned to raise funds for (RED).