Really great design is hard. Good is the enemy of great. Competent design is not too much of a stretch. But if you are trying to do something new, you have challenges on so many axes.
We say no to a lot of things so we can invest an incredible amount of care on what we do.
I think it’s a wonderful view that care was important – but I think you can make a one-off and not care and you can make a million of something and care. Whether you really care or not is not driven by how many of the products you’re going to make.
Goal we’ve always had for design at Apple is to create solutions that are inevitable.
We shouldn’t be afraid to fail- if we are not failing we are not pushing.
Simplification is one of the most difficult things to do.
It became an exercise to reduce and reduce, but it makes it easier to build an easier for people to work with.
I get an incredible thrill and satisfaction from seeing somebody with Apple’s tell-tale white earbuds. But I’m constantly haunted by thoughts of, is it good enough? Is there any way we could have made it better?
My father was a very good craftsman. He made furniture, he made silverware and he had an incredible gift in terms of how you can make something yourself.
If something is going to be better, it is new, and if it’s new you are confronting problems and challenges you don’t have references for.
I left London in 1992, but I’m there 3-4 times a year, and love visiting.
So much of what we try to do is get to a point where the solution seems inevitable: you know, you think “of course it’s that way, why would it be any other way?” It looks so obvious, but that sense of inevitability in the solution is really hard to achieve.
That’s an interesting thing about an object. One object speaks volumes about the company that produced it and its values and priorities.
I figured out some basic stuff: that form and colour defines your perception of the nature of an object, whether or not it is intended to.
I discovered at an early age that all I’ve ever wanted to do is design.
When our tools are broken, we feel broken. And when somebody fixes one, we feel a tiny bit more whole.
I am keenly aware that I benefit from a wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making.
Apple’s Jony Ive describes his “fanatical” approach to design in new interview.
The more I learnt about this cheeky – almost rebellious – company, the more it appealed to me, as it unapologetically pointed to an alternative in a complacent and creatively bankrupt industry. Apple stood for something and had reason for being that wasn’t just about making money.
The memory of how we work will endure beyond the products of our work.
Design is a word that’s come to mean so much that it’s also a word that has come to mean nothing.