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Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design Jony Ive is taking on a new role and a new title for the company as its first Chief Design Officer. Aside from dealing with hardware, software, and packaging of products, he’ll now add the design of their retail stores to his responsibilities. He’ll even have a hand in picking the furniture and fittings of the new Apple Campus 2.

With an ever expanding line of Macs, iOS devices and various Watch models and iOS and OS X visual design and UI requirements under his jurisdiction, Ive has a lot on his plate, so the move makes sense so he can apply his razor focus on products.

Two of his lieutenants are also getting promoted, which will help Ive divest himself of the more administrative tasks. Richard Howarth will be heading Industrial Design and Alan Dye will be head of User Interface. Howarth has been a key member of the iPhone program since the beginning and Dye has done work with the Apple Watch’s UI. Both will report directly to Ive.

Source: SlashGear

Update on Monday, May 25, 2015 at 11:54PM by

Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Tim Cook's letter to Apple Staff is reprinted below

Team,

I have exciting news to share with you today. I am happy to announce that Jony Ive is being promoted to the newly created position of Chief Design Officer at Apple.

Jony is one of the most talented and accomplished designers of his generation, with an astonishing 5000 design and utility patents to his name. His new role is a reflection of the scope of work he has been doing at Apple for some time. Jony’s design responsibilities have expanded from hardware and, more recently, software UI to the look and feel of Apple retail stores, our new campus in Cupertino, product packaging and many other parts of our company.

Design is one of the most important ways we communicate with our customers, and our reputation for world-class design differentiates Apple from every other company in the world. As Chief Design Officer, Jony will remain responsible for all of our design, focusing entirely on current design projects, new ideas and future initiatives. On July 1, he will hand off his day-to-day managerial responsibilities of ID and UI to Richard Howarth, our new vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, our new vice president of User Interface Design.

Richard, Alan and Jony have been working together as colleagues and friends for many years. Richard has been a member of the Design team for two decades, and in that time he has been a key contributor to the design of each generation of iPhone, Mac, and practically every other Apple product. Alan started at Apple nine years ago on the Marcom team, and helped Jony build the UI team which collaborated with ID, Software Engineering and countless other groups on groundbreaking projects like iOS 7, iOS 8 and Apple Watch.

Please join me in congratulating these three exceptionally talented designers on their new roles at Apple.

Tim