It’s no exaggeration to say that Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ives inspired a revolution in industrial product design. Their legacy can be seen in lots of products today, and not just those made by Apple.
The Smithsonian just published an interesting feature article that sheds a little light on the genesis of the Jobs-Ives design philosophy and how it interacted with the development of technology at Apple. The piece, How Steve Jobs’ Love of Simplicity Fueled a Design Revolution, was written by Walter Isaacson who also wrote a biography of Jobs, published last year.
Two things struck me as particularly interesting about the piece. First, the fact that Apple’s design team was considered just as important as the engineering team under Jobs’ rule—and often actually took precedence when it came to developing new products. And second, that Jobs’ and Ives’ obsession with design simplicity and ease-of-use became incredibly important with Apple’s groundbreaking mobile devices, especially the iPhone, where translating the complexity of the device into something that fits into a pocket and can be operated with one thumb presents a huge challenge.
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