I nearly walked away from writing this essay. Trendy or current topics usually make me turn the other way, but I'm making an exception today. I'm not sure if you watched the interview with Jony Ive and Patrick (CEO of Stripe) last week. It's possible that it's already been beaten to death online, but here we are (:
While it felt like the conversation never quite reached its final destination, like a journey without arrival, it made me feel something in my belly. Many of the talking points resonated with me because they reflected some of my writing and thoughts I had for years, many of which I wrote about on DESK.
During the interview you could definitely feel that Jony kept his guard up. He had a lot more to say but decided to keep it to himself. The real stories and his truth will remain untold and I think we will have to wait another decade for him to fully open up in another future interview. This might be my only criticism of the interview, the professional caution cut the entire thing a bit short exactly where it could've started to become more interesting. But hey, I take what I can!
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the conversation and it reinforced some of my existing thinking. And in true Jony Ive fashion, with his soft spoken British accent where he could sell me anything he wanted, he just manages to put things into words much better than I ever could.
So here are my main take aways, in no particular order:
#1 Design is an expression of our values
Some truths hit harder than others, this is one of them. Design as an expression of our values has been part of my thinking for years and I love that Jony mentions it in his conversation.
Our creations aren't just utilitarian things drifting aimlessly through the world, they're declarations of what matters to us. They're a physical (or sometimes digital) embodiments of our beliefs. They're artifacts and evidence of whether we truly cared.
I believe this principle used to be THE foundation of most commercial ideas worth pursuing in the past. People built products and created entire companies solely based on this foundation. Today this has been largely abandoned for the empty promise of quick profit. Silicon Valley has become more obsessed with the "exit strategy" than building something on a foundation of meaning and substance (and that's not a note from me, that's from Jony).
Jony captured it perfectly when he said: "What we make stands testament to who we are.". Anybody serious enough who follows this principle would not abandon their company or product for a quick profit.
Design and the things we create reach beyond aesthetics and functionality. Design isn't merely visual appeal or functional efficiency, it's a worldview, YOUR worldview, translated into tangible form.
And I absolutely love this way of putting it. It's the truth of why I design. It's the truth of why I get up in the morning and create. Hearing this sentiment echoed by Jony Ive made me fall in love with this profession all over again. So thank you for that.
#2 Simplicity can and should be soulful
There's a misunderstanding about what minimalism truly is. Our current contemporary interpretation treats it as this surgical procedure in which you just remove absolutely everything until it all becomes so sterile that there is nothing left to hold on for us.
But minimalism isn't about creating aesthetic emptiness but about achieving clarity by focusing on what genuinely matters. When you strip away elements solely for the sake of the minimalist aesthetic, you're basically just performing an elaborate design theater rather than thinking about what it all really means. You end up with forms without soul.
Real minimalism emerges when you find that perfect balance between purpose and form. Utility and humanity. It sounds so cheesy, but I truly believe this.
#3 Metrics kill magic
"We talk about what we can measure, and then assume thats all that matters. That's a lie." — This quote by Jony hit me hard. If you're a designer, you know this is a constant power struggle that will last your entire career.
We've been so good at measuring things today that all we do is just designing based on numbers. I've been a big fan of trusting your gut and have written about this extensively in the past. We often get so lost in metrics that we lose "the magic" behind things we can't fully measure or quantify.
The best parts of human experience, like love, wonder or the moment when something just feels right — They all exist beyond measurement. They're real and they matter to us more than anything, but they can't be captured in spreadsheets.
Design itself has many such moments of "magic". Jony mentions the specific unboxing experience of the charger cable for an iPhone. It feels like something so unimportant, yet Jony & team spent countless hours making it feel special and memorable. Making it feel like "someone cared about you and how you unwrap that cable". You can't measure that, but you can feel it.
We must protect this space for the unmeasurable and keep designing for these wonderful moments.
Thank you for this conversation, Jony!
Yours truly,
Tobias
