Legendary iPhone designer Jony Ive has been hanging out with celebs, models, and designers since announcing his departure from Apple

While studying design at Newcastle Polytechnic in the northeast of England, he had an epiphany while designing on an Apple Mac.

"I discovered the Mac and felt I had a connection with the people who were making this product. I suddenly understood what a company was, or was supposed to be."

Though Ive's day-to-day involvement with Apple reportedly lessened after the Apple Watch launched, Ive still helped shape Apple's product design well into the post-Steve Jobs era. He was a key figure behind the Watch's design, but reportedly felt that Tim Cook wasn't as interested in design as Jobs (a report Cook called "absurd").

Apple first announced Ive's departure in June, saying he wanted to form an independent design company with Apple among its primary clients." Though few specifics are known about the company as yet, it is set will be called LoveFrom, and launch in 2020, according to a June interview Ive gave to the Financial Times.

Ive's departure left a gaping hole in Apple's C-suite, not to mention massive shoes to fill. Jeff Williams was chosen as Jony Ive's successor at Apple, and led the development of the Apple Watch. The multitalented engineer is also leading many of Apple's healthcare initiatives, and currently serves as the tech giant's chief operating officer.

Ive and Steve Jobs were known to be friends as well as collaborators.

Ive has said the name of his new firm, LoveFrom, was inspired by a conversation he had with Jobs.

According to Ive, Jobs [said] that one of the fundamental motivations was that when you make something with love and with care, even though you probably will never meet . . . the people that you're making it for, and you'll never shake their hand, by making something with care, you are expressing your gratitude to humanity, to the species."

Here he is with fashion designer Paul Smith at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The shot was taken by renowned German photographer Andreas Gursky.

Ive is that rare breed of creative so successful that other creatives make him the focus of their work. In this case, Ive was the subject of a sleek portrait photo by Gurksy, who snapped Ive at Apple's Cupertino headquarters.

Ive is pictured alongside Gursky at the portrait's launch in October at the National Portrait Gallery.

The campus, also nicknamed "the spaceship", was designed by Ive in collaboration with the architect Norman Foster.

Arguably, Fabien Baron is to art direction what Ive is to hardware design. The Frenchman, – pictured alongside Ive at the MATCHESFASHION x Fabien Baron x Phaidon Book launch in October – has directed ads, created perfumes and even designed magazines. Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, Harper's Bazaar and Italian Vogue are just a smattering of his sartorial clients.

The motor racing festival was held at the iconic Goodwood estate in Chichester, England in July. The sprawling estate is located near the eponymous Goodwood Circuit, a historic British motor racing venue for both cars and motorbikes.

Ive is often known to attend the festival.

Though he once said he doesn't see his work as art, Ive's attendance at the Royal College of Art's Chancellor's Circle Dinner in London last July was hardly surprising for someone so aesthetics-oriented. According to the New Yorker, Steve Jobs's widow Laurene Powell Jobs once called Ive "an artist with an artist's temperament."

As well as setting up LoveFrom with Newson (above, left) Ive also told the FT back in June that he hoped to stay "very involved" in Apple's product development for "many, many years to come." Whatever Ive's box of tricks contains next, it'll surely have the hand of Apple written all over it.