Blue Peter visits One Infinite Loop
Blue Peter, the world’s longest running childrens television program (first broadcast in 1958), traveled to Cupertino and One Infinite Loop recently to pay a special visit to London-born Sir Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design for Apple. While most inhabitants of Planet Earth have probably used something that was designed by Ive, most probably didn’t know that he is also a life-long Blue Peter fan. The cool thing about the video is that it also shows the CNC machining and talks about Apple Design and naming Apple Products.
The BBC One (now CBBC) show is historically famous for its presenter challenges, as well as the famous arts and crafts ‘makes’. When interviewed by presenter Barney Harwood, Ive fondly remembers the makes from the show, and loved that they reused products that you thought were no longer useful. In this very special episode, Sir Jonathan reviews several product designs sent in by Blue Peter viewers through a series of video messages from the children behind the designs. On receiving his gold badge, he called the honor “..absolutely incredible”. As a mark of honor for the program, Sir Jonathan and his team made ‘something very special‘, a unique Blue Peter badge crafted from solid aluminium through a 10-hour process, and presented it to series host, Barney Harwood, in true Blue Peter style saying, “Here’s one that we made earlier.”
Several years ago, while in London during one of our productions for PBS, we had the great good fortune of getting a behind the scenes tour of Blue Peter and were able to watch several studio segments in production. At the end of the tour, we were presented with our very own Blue Peter badge. While we didn’t immediately understand the incredible magnitude of our gift, having talked to a number of UK residents since then, I think I need to find a safe deposit box soon.
