Vanity Fair Interview with Apple Design Director Jonathan Ivy
Vanity Fair Interview with Apple Design Director Jonathan Ivy


"Sect Leader Joe is the person with the best concentration I have ever seen in my life." This sentence was said by Jonathan Ive, Apple's senior deputy design director, in an exclusive interview with Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, in San Francisco.

 

"When I say 'concentration', I don't mean 'Oh, I have to work hard this Monday'," said Jonathan Ive, a man seldom interviewed, "but thinking every minute about 'why are we talking about this and when should we talk about it?'."

 

When asked Ive to talk about the three things he learned from Sect Leader Joe, his former boss, Ive said that what Sect Leader Joe meant by "focus" specifically meant "don't do this", "devote yourself" and "every idea of yours is very valuable".

 

Many people think that Sect Leader Qiao is a very tough leader, but Ive said that Sect Leader Qiao is just "very focused" on things and relatively "informal".

 

In Ive's memory, this feature of Sect Leader Qiao was very obvious when commenting on a design. Gang Leader Qiao, who was also the CEO of Apple at that time, did not show Ive and his team any kindness. After being sprayed with blood in the conference room, Ive found Gang Leader Qiao and asked him why he was so merciless.

 

"We have done our best," Ive said to Sect Leader Qiao, and kept telling him how much he cared about the team.

 

"No, it's called conceit," said Qiao, who continued to put the point directly. "Little Joe, you just hope everyone likes you."

 

Ive honestly admitted that the words of Sect Leader Joe that straightforwardly exposed his very difficult life made him "extremely unhappy". Ive started working at Apple in 1992 and has participated in the design of many of Apple's iconic products, from iMac to iPhone 6 Plus. Until today, Ive has finally understood the difference between making products and being a person: when you are working as a product, what you need to do is to make the product perfect, rather than make everyone in your team love you more.

 

In addition, Ive also said that he "found a lot of garbage hotels in the days when he was home from all over the world" in order to demonstrate the "focus" and the concept of "making products first and then being a man" that Sect Leader Qiao said.

 

In the interview, we also talked about the number of Apple's core design team members (this team only has 16 people and they still use painting to draft a product at the beginning of design), the new iPhone (Ive said that the sleek design can make the enlarged screen look "not so wide") and the new Apple Watch, Ive also said in the interview that Apple Watch is "the pinnacle of functionality first".

 

"Why did you decide to launch a watch instead of a pendant or something like that?" asked Carter.

 

"Over the years, when it comes to looking at time, people are most used to raising their wrists and looking at them," Ive replied, "People's wrists are really a magical place, which is very suitable for simply taking a glance to obtain time or information. When we decide to set up a project, everything seems natural. We also believe that wrists should be the end of all wearable devices."

 

"So your design is to make people amazing, or like a Porsche 930 or an Eames leisure chair, it can be remembered forever?" Carter asked.

 

Ive said that their design team mainly focused on the moment, "I think we didn't want to leave a milestone in history, but we hope that if our design is simple enough and we have done very well, maybe it can be immortal."

 

An audience present asked Ive his opinion on the products that other companies copied from Apple's design, such as Xiaomi Company in China.

 

"Let me be frank. This plagiarism is not flattery at all," Ive replied. "When you do something for the first time, you don't know the result. But after seven or eight years of efforts, we have constantly improved it, and then it was copied. To be honest, this feeling is like those of mine who could have enjoyed themselves at home with my family for so long, but were stolen by plagiarists on weekends of working overtime. They are called lazy. "

 

At the end of the interview, another audience asked Ive how to deal with the inevitable conflict between shape and function. Ive's answer was as elegant as one of his classic designs: "A beautiful product that is not easy to use is ugly."


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