Apple's Jony Ive teams up with Marc Newson to create one-off desk

The one-off items have been created for a charity auction at Sotheby's, with all proceeds going towards fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria

Strong sales of the iPhone 5s show that customers are happy to pay premium prices for products designed by Jony Ive, but a charity auction at Sotheby’s of objects created by Ive and fellow superstar designer Marc Newson will likely be beyond the budgets of most of us.

Two one-off designs will be at the heart of the auction – a sleek metal desk and a custom Leica digital camera – but there are also objects that Ive and Newson admired, and have requested that manufacturers tweak for them.

These include a customized Range Rover, a Steinway grand piano and - for those of us who see the words ‘Jony Ive’ and immediately think ‘Apple’- a pair of the company’s iPod ear phones, though to give them a subtle refresh they’ve been crafted from solid rose gold.

The good news is that Newson and Ive (who are reportedly good friends) are using their powers for good, and all proceeds from the auction will be going to The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The two custom objects created by the pair include the desk (above) and camera (below). The deskj seems to show more of Newson’s individual styles (the machined aluminium reminiscent of his history in industrial air design) whilst the camera (based on a Leica M rangefinder camera) is much more Ive.

"I found it a very odd and unusual thing to put this amount of love and energy into one thing, where you are only going to make one,” said Ive about the camera in an interview with Vanity Fair. “But isn’t it beautiful?”

These special edition iPod ear phones have been crafted from rose gold.

The Leica M (normally costing ,000) is made from a "laser machined aluminum body and an anodized aluminum outer shell"