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Jonathan Ive Quotes

Sir Jonathan Paul Ive, is a British industrial designer who is currently the chief design officer of Apple and Chancellor of the Royal College of Art in London. He joined Apple in 1992. Following ten years of service, he was promoted to senior vice president of design, overseeing the design of the iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and parts of Apple's user interface, iOS.

Born and raised in London, England, Ive studied design at University of Northumbria at Newcastle and had his work displayed at the Design Museum. After graduating, he was hired by a start-up design firm called Tangerine to work in their industrials group. Ive began working at Apple in the early 1990s, design the decade's PowerBooks and Macs. He was invited to join the Royal College of Art in May 2017 as its head-of-college, serving a fixed five-year term until May 2022.

His body of work–from his university years to present–has been influenced by the Bauhaus design tradition, in particular its focus on the credos "form follows function" and "less is more". German designer Dieter Rams has noted Ive's work as in-line with his ten principles of good design. Parallels in color stencil, structure, and lighting design can be found with the luxury German automotive, Audi. Ive frequently lends his voice–noted for its Essex accent and reserved, loquacious style of speech–to Apple's marketing and promotional videos.

Ive has received a number of accolades and honors for his designs and patents. In the United Kingdom, he has been appointed a Royal Designer for Industry , an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering , and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire . In a 2004 BBC poll of cultural writers, Ive was ranked the most influential person in British culture. His designs, both negatively and positively received, have been noted as integral to the successes and failures of Apple.

✵ 27. February 1967
Jonathan Ive photo
Jonathan Ive: 17   quotes 1   like

Famous Jonathan Ive Quotes

“I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity; in clarity, in efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation. It's about bringing order to complexity.”

Jonathan Ive

Ive explaining the design philosophy behind iOS 7 in its product video, shown at WWDC 2013.

“There's an applied style of being minimal and simple, and then there's real simplicity. This looks simple, because it really is.”

Jonathan Ive

On the design of the Apple Cinema Display http://www.apple.com/displays/, in an article by Leander Kahney in Wired News magazine (June 2003)

“I think a beautiful product that doesn't work very well is ugly.”

Jonathan Ive

Vanity Fair: "Jonathan Ives Shares Three Lessons He Learned From Steve Jobs" https://www.vanityfair.com/news/tech/2014/10/jony-ive-lessons-from-steve-jobs (9 October 2014)

“My father was a really good craftsman – he was a silversmith – so I grew up understanding how things were made. That’s something that’s easy to take for granted, but everything that has been made has been thought about, designed, and I think that growing up with an appreciation of the nature of objects was hugely influential to me.”

Jonathan Ive

Vogue: "Quiet By Design: Naomi Campbell Interviews Jony Ive" (2 April 2018)

“The defining qualities are about use: ease and simplicity. Caring beyond the functional imperative, we also acknowledge that products have a significance way beyond traditional views of function.”

Jonathan Ive

In an interview at the Design Museum (2003)[citation needed]

“Being superficially different is the goal of so many of the products we see... rather than trying to innovate and genuinely taking the time, investing the resources and caring enough to try and make something better.”

Jonathan Ive

In The Globe and Mail newspaper (January 2007)

Jonathan Ive Quotes about thinking

“To create something that's genuinely new, you have to start again, and I think with great intent, you disconnect from the past.”

Jonathan Ive

Ive (2012) cited in: " Without Steve Jobs, Has Apple Lost its Mojo? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFY_vJV4I6A", TODAY Online, Jun. 12, 2012: About the new MacBook Pro in its introduction video

“I think so many of the objects we're surrounded by seem trivial. And I think that's because they're either trying to make a statement or trying to be overtly different. What we were trying to do was have a very honest approach and an exploration of materials and surface treatment. 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?"”

Jonathan Ive

It looks so obvious, but that sense of inevitability in the solution is really hard to achieve.
In an interview in Icon Magazine (July 2003)

“With a father who is a fabulous craftsman, I was raised with the fundamental belief that it is only when you personally work with a material with your hands, that you come to understand its true nature, its characteristics, its attributes, and I think – very importantly – its potential.”

Jonathan Ive

Dezeen: "Fewer designers seem to be interested in how something is actually made" says Jonathan Ive https://www.dezeen.com/2016/05/03/fewer-designers-interested-in-how-something-is-made-jonathan-ive-apple-manus-x-machina/ (3 May 2016)

“I think there's almost a belligerence - people are frustrated with their manufactured environment. We tend to assume the problem is with us, and not with the products we're trying to use. In other words, when our tools are broken, we feel broken. And when somebody fixes one, we feel a tiny bit more whole.”

Jonathan Ive

Ive (2007) cited in: Lev Grossman " The Apple of Your Ear http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1576854-5,00.html", Time Magazine, Friday, Jan. 12, 2007: About the iPhone upon its introduction

Jonathan Ive Quotes

“Paying attention to what’s happened historically actually helps give you some faith that you are going to find a solution. Faith isn’t a surrogate for engineering competence, but it can certainly help fuel the belief that you’re going to find a solution. And that’s important.”

Jonathan Ive

Time: "Apple Design Chief Jonathan Ive on the iPhone X: We Had to Solve ‘Extraordinarily Complex Problems’" http://time.com/5025887/apple-jony-ive-iphone-x/ (16 November 2017)

Faith , Help

“It’s not too shabby is it?”

Jonathan Ive

About the iPhone, in the Macworld Keynote (2007)

“It's sad and frustrating that we are surrounded by products that seem to testify to a complete lack of care. That's an interesting thing about an object. One object speaks volumes about the company that produced it and its values and priorities.”

Jonathan Ive

In an interview in The Daily Telegraph newspaper (November 2005)

Sadness

“The memory of how we work will endure beyond the products of our work.”

Jonathan Ive

A reference to the Apple design team, in an interview at the Design Museum (2003)

Memory

“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.”

Jonathan Ive

On how he felt when he used a Mac for the first time at college, in an interview at the Design Museum (2003)[citation needed]

Money

“We have always thought about design as being so much more than just the way something looks. It's the whole thing: the way something works on so many different levels. Ultimately, of course, design defines so much of our experience.”

Jonathan Ive

Ive explaining his view on Apple's use of design in the product video shown at WWDC 2013 for iOS 7.

Way

“Very often design is the most immediate way of defining what products become in people's minds.”

Jonathan Ive

In an interview for the BBC (January 2002)

People , Way

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