Inside the mind of iPhone design guru Sir Jony Ive - and his secret to success

Sir Jonathan Ive spoke at the Cambridge Union ahead of receiving the Professor Hawking Fellowship
Sir Jonathan Ive spoke at the Cambridge Union ahead of receiving the Professor Hawking Fellowship this week Credit: Darren Gerrish/Darren Gerrish/Apple

For a man credited with helping propel Apple to trillion dollar status, Sir Jonathan Ive is disarmingly modest.   “Brevity, as you’re about to discover, isn’t an exceptional strength of mine”, said Apple’s chief designer to a chorus of laughter.

Sir Jony, 51, was speaking at the Cambridge Union ahead of receiving the Professor Hawking Fellowship for his services to design - the second time the honour has ever been awarded.

It was a rare chance to see inside the brilliant mind of Sir Jony Ive, who has been responsible for the elegant designs of seminal devices that are woven into the very fabric of our lives, including the iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air and Apple Watch.

On Thursday, he announced that he's leaving Apple after more than two decades, and would set up his own company in the US,  LoveFrom, with Apple as his client.

The Essex-born designer has previously described his own university years at Newcastle Polytechnic as “in some ways miserable...I did nothing but work”. His lecturers remember him as a remarkable student who was perceptive and diligent. It’s this focus and hard work that Sir Jony believes is as important as curiosity in the creative process.

"There is a fundamental conflict between two very different ways of thinking. It is the conflict between curiosity and the resolve and focus that is necessary to solve problems,” he said. “Curiosity, while it fuels and motivates, despite being utterly fundamental to the generation of ideas, in isolation just culminates in lots of long lists.”

Sir Jony, with his trademark humility, claims that he still struggles to balance the two competing mindsets. “I’m surprised how hard I often need to work to remain open and curious.”

Such an acute awareness of the creative process - something he shared with the late Steve Jobs -  is part of what has made him a world leader in his field. Sir Jony has a remarkable appreciation for the nature of ideas, and believes some of the best often come from the “quietest voices”.

“The whole process is fabulously terrifying and so uncertain. But I love that on Monday, there's nothing. There is no idea, there is no conversation, the room is silent, there's certainly not a drawing. Prototypes are way in the future. On Monday, there is nothing, but on Wednesday, there is, no matter how partial.”

Today, Sir Jony is immersed in the cutting-edge of technology. But he claims that during his teenage years, he struggled to use a computer and felt technically inept. That all changed in 1988 when he first encountered the Apple Mac. He was astounded by how easy it was to use - a moment he said he remembers clearly.

“It became a very powerful tool that helped me design and create…using the Mac I sensed a clear and direct connection with the people who actually created the Macintosh. For the first time, I remember being moved by obvious humanity and care beyond just the functional imperative. "

“I was compelled to find out more about this crazy group of individuals in California.”

That initial encounter led him on a journey to Silicon Valley at a pivotal time when companies, including Apple, were beginning to get into consumer products and were desperately in need of designers. And it’s at Apple where Sir Jony learned the importance of nurturing ideas, however tentative they may seem. It’s something that he continues to prioritise in his work.

For Sir Jony Ive, it was his former mentor, Steve Jobs, who gave him the space to explore his creativity. Visibly moved, Sir Jony ends his speech with a quote from his former boss.

“There's lots of ways to be as a person. People express their deep appreciation in different ways. But one of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there.

“And you never meet the people, you never shake their hands. You never hear their story or tell yours but somehow, in the act of making something with a great deal of care and love, something is transmitted there."

"And it's a way of expressing to the rest of our species our deep appreciation."

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