Former Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive will be featured on the cover of WSJ. Magazine later this month, reflecting on his work at Apple and design philosophy in a wide-ranging interview.
Image by Alasdair McLellan for WSJ. Magazine.The interview spans topics including Ive's youth, first meeting with Steve Jobs and work at Apple, and recent work at his design company LoveFrom. Reflecting on his beginnings at Apple, Ive said:
"I wanted to be a part of this crazy California company," Ive says now. Corporation is a word he reviles. "A group of people who are truly united in a shared sense of purpose" is what he prefers, and that's initially what he hoped to find at Apple. Instead, soon after he joined, the company began to drift. The Newton tablet he designed in 1992 was praised by critics but largely ignored by consumers. Apple started to atrophy into an acquisition target. "The most important lessons you would never choose to learn because they are so painful," Ive says. "The death of a company is so ugly."
Image by Alasdair McLellan for WSJ. Magazine.Ive on meeting Steve Jobs upon his return to Apple in 1997:
Ive, then 30, assumed Jobs would hire a more renowned designer to replace him, but something unexpected happened at their first meeting. "I clicked with Steve in a way that I had never before done with someone and never have since."
On his purpose, Ive remarked:
"I love making things that are profoundly useful," he adds. "I'm a very practical craftsperson."
Some of Jony Ive's own Apple devices. Image by Alasdair McLellan for WSJ. Magazine.He also discussed the importance of language and creativity, the downside of disruption, and curiosity:
"Success is the enemy of curiosity," "I am terrified and disgusted when people are absolutely without curiosity," he says. "It's at the root of so much social dysfunction and conflict.... Part of why I get so furious when people dismiss creativity is that [when] it's an activity practiced in its most noble and collaborative form, it means a bunch of people who come together in an empathic and selfless way. What I have come to realize is that the process of creating with large groups of people is really hard and is also unbelievably powerful."
Ive will be featured in November's "Innovators Issue," out on newsstands on Saturday, November 12. Ive is one of eight covers representing each of this year's award recipients. See the full interview on The Wall Street Journal's website.
