5 ms·

As with most of the things that Ive produced at Apple, this is very pretty, but ultimately unusable. Now let's see what happens to this when the twenty-five ot

As with most of the things that Ive produced at Apple, this is very pretty, but ultimately unusable. Now let's see what happens to this when the twenty-five other usability experts at Apple come in to refine it into a workable product. Jony Ive is the most over-rated product designer in at least the last 20 years.

kumarvvr 5y ago
> As with most of the things that Ive produced at Apple, this is very pretty, but ultimately unusable. I wouldn't go that far. There is a reason the average Joe and Georgina love Apple products. Simplicity makes them usable. Before the iPhone, most high end phones were complex and clunky. It takes a special combination of design aesthetic (from Ive) and a laser focus on user happiness (from Jobs) to come up with something like the iPhone.
smt88 5y ago
I strongly disagree that this is pretty. It looks like the logo for a 1920s tea room. It's busy, hard to read, and very forgettable. This fails as a logo on every level.
- newsbinator 5y ago
  It mainly fails as a logo in the way a nicely formatted resume fails as a logo: because it’s not a logo. But personally I agree that it’s busy, hard to read and forgettable. It’s not a great seal. It looks to me like something an artistically talented novice would make.
  - smt88 5y ago
    > It mainly fails as a logo in the way a nicely formatted resume fails as a logo: because it’s not a logo. I'm not sure what the difference between a logo and a seal is (in the context of a digital image representing a brand). But regardless, this article calls it a logo, as does Ive in a direct quote.
alephnan 5y ago
It’s a complex organization. Personally, Apple hardware (minus the all usb-c MacBooks) and their software interfaces are more useable to me than Android or Linux. If it was easy, Google would have found a better Jony Ive. There are probably better product designers out there, but to succeed in a big org, it’s also political prowess and story telling ability. Jony Ive is at the top because he’s good at what he does, and that’s not necessarily being a product designer. It’s being Apple’s chief product designer, and that is not the same as being a product designer. His skill is convincing enough decision makers that he is the best chief product designer in the org. Is material design good? Having worked at Google as an engineer and working extensively with designers, then also attending design school and coming from a family in the creative field, I don’t respect Google design org for their aesthetic sensibility. I have never met a single designer at Google that impressed me with their aesthetic / photographic eye ( arguably a proxy measure for good designers in the same way logical reasoning abilities are for engineers ). The skill set of a Google designer is not that of an artist. Is creative director Virgil Abloh of Louis Vuitton a good designer? Most people who studied fashion design would say no. But he sells products, and that’s what the Louis Vuitton’s of the world needs. The fashion designers who have the most street cred aren’t the ones leading fashion brands you’ve heard. Michael Kors is a pretty mainstream and commercially successful brand, but he’s a laughing stock among fashion designers. The ones who know how and when to balance commercial and artistic are the ones who rise to the top in our economic system. Same with mainstream musical artists. It’s not their music abilities, it’s the whole package. Their style, their album art, their public image. As for whether Apple products are badly designed or not. We don’t know what Apple’s higher level games are. It’s plausible they intentionally alternate back and forth every few years from disappointing to exciting products. Maybe this is the most profit maximizing. A kind of forward looking planned obsolescence or planned disappointed. We wouldn’t be as excited for the latest MacBooks if the prior generation wasn’t a flop. What we know is Apple is a trillion dollar company, and their stock has consistently done well irrespective of bad industrial design.
hardwaregeek 5y ago
I'm curious, is there even another product designer who is rated so to speak? I can't name a prominent designer from the last 20 years. Perhaps that speaks to my ignorance more than anything else. Furthermore, who supervises the twenty-five other usability experts? If Denis Villeneuve had to make a film by himself, no cinematographer, editor, gaffer, grip, etc., he'd make a pretty awful film. It's the combination of creative people working in unison under the watch of a single auteur that makes film, and products successful. That doesn't mean Villeneuve or Ive are overrated; it just means they're directors.
- stonogo 5y ago
  Hacker News doesn't really care about product design outside of Jony Ive. Jasper Morrison, Richard Sapper (and his protege David Hill), Marc Newson, James Dyson, Yves Behar, and Philippe Starck are worth reading about. Isabelle Olsson is Google's current head of design, as another example.

kumarvvr 5y ago

> As with most of the things that Ive produced at Apple, this is very pretty, but ultimately unusable. I wouldn't go that far. There is a reason the average Joe and Georgina love Apple products. Simplicity makes them usable. Before the iPhone, most high end phones were complex and clunky. It takes a special combination of design aesthetic (from Ive) and a laser focus on user happiness (from Jobs) to come up with something like the iPhone.

smt88 5y ago

I strongly disagree that this is pretty. It looks like the logo for a 1920s tea room. It's busy, hard to read, and very forgettable. This fails as a logo on every level.

newsbinator 5y ago
It mainly fails as a logo in the way a nicely formatted resume fails as a logo: because it’s not a logo. But personally I agree that it’s busy, hard to read and forgettable. It’s not a great seal. It looks to me like something an artistically talented novice would make.
- smt88 5y ago
  > It mainly fails as a logo in the way a nicely formatted resume fails as a logo: because it’s not a logo. I'm not sure what the difference between a logo and a seal is (in the context of a digital image representing a brand). But regardless, this article calls it a logo, as does Ive in a direct quote.

alephnan 5y ago

It’s a complex organization. Personally, Apple hardware (minus the all usb-c MacBooks) and their software interfaces are more useable to me than Android or Linux. If it was easy, Google would have found a better Jony Ive. There are probably better product designers out there, but to succeed in a big org, it’s also political prowess and story telling ability. Jony Ive is at the top because he’s good at what he does, and that’s not necessarily being a product designer. It’s being Apple’s chief product designer, and that is not the same as being a product designer. His skill is convincing enough decision makers that he is the best chief product designer in the org. Is material design good? Having worked at Google as an engineer and working extensively with designers, then also attending design school and coming from a family in the creative field, I don’t respect Google design org for their aesthetic sensibility. I have never met a single designer at Google that impressed me with their aesthetic / photographic eye ( arguably a proxy measure for good designers in the same way logical reasoning abilities are for engineers ). The skill set of a Google designer is not that of an artist. Is creative director Virgil Abloh of Louis Vuitton a good designer? Most people who studied fashion design would say no. But he sells products, and that’s what the Louis Vuitton’s of the world needs. The fashion designers who have the most street cred aren’t the ones leading fashion brands you’ve heard. Michael Kors is a pretty mainstream and commercially successful brand, but he’s a laughing stock among fashion designers. The ones who know how and when to balance commercial and artistic are the ones who rise to the top in our economic system. Same with mainstream musical artists. It’s not their music abilities, it’s the whole package. Their style, their album art, their public image. As for whether Apple products are badly designed or not. We don’t know what Apple’s higher level games are. It’s plausible they intentionally alternate back and forth every few years from disappointing to exciting products. Maybe this is the most profit maximizing. A kind of forward looking planned obsolescence or planned disappointed. We wouldn’t be as excited for the latest MacBooks if the prior generation wasn’t a flop. What we know is Apple is a trillion dollar company, and their stock has consistently done well irrespective of bad industrial design.

hardwaregeek 5y ago

I'm curious, is there even another product designer who is rated so to speak? I can't name a prominent designer from the last 20 years. Perhaps that speaks to my ignorance more than anything else. Furthermore, who supervises the twenty-five other usability experts? If Denis Villeneuve had to make a film by himself, no cinematographer, editor, gaffer, grip, etc., he'd make a pretty awful film. It's the combination of creative people working in unison under the watch of a single auteur that makes film, and products successful. That doesn't mean Villeneuve or Ive are overrated; it just means they're directors.

stonogo 5y ago
Hacker News doesn't really care about product design outside of Jony Ive. Jasper Morrison, Richard Sapper (and his protege David Hill), Marc Newson, James Dyson, Yves Behar, and Philippe Starck are worth reading about. Isabelle Olsson is Google's current head of design, as another example.