Jonathan Ive quotes

Jonathan Ive is an English designer best known for his work at Apple Inc., where he led the design of iconic products such as the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. His minimalist approach has greatly influenced modern technology and industrial design. He has received numerous awards and recognition for his contributions to the design world. Here are 118 of his quotes:

I think a beautiful product that doesn't work very well is ugly.

Jonathan Ive

I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity; in clarity, in efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation. It's about bringing order to complexity.

Jonathan Ive

Very often design is the most immediate way of defining what products become in people's minds.

Jonathan Ive

There's an applied style of being minimal and simple, and then there's real simplicity. This looks simple, because it really is.

Jonathan Ive

The memory of how we work will endure beyond the products of our work.

Jonathan Ive

The defining qualities are about use: ease and simplicity. Caring beyond the functional imperative, we also acknowledge that products have a significance way beyond traditional views of function.

Jonathan Ive

The more I learnt about this cheeky – almost rebellious – company, the more it appealed to me, as it unapologetically pointed to an alternative in a complacent and creatively bankrupt industry. Apple stood for something and had reason for being that wasn't just about making money.

Jonathan Ive

The best ideas start as conversations.

Jonathan Ive

There is beauty when something works and it works intuitively.

Jonathan Ive

When you're trying to solve a problem on a new product type, you become completely focused on problems that seem a number of steps removed from the main product. That problem solving can appear a little abstract, and it is easy to lose sight of the product.

Jonathan Ive

With a father who is a fabulous craftsman, I was raised with the fundamental belief that it is only when you personally work with a material with your hands, that you come to understand its true nature, its characteristics, its attributes, and I think – very importantly – its potential.

Jonathan Ive

Simplicity is not the absence of clutter, that's a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That's not simple.

Jonathan Ive

True simplicity is, well, you just keep on going and going until you get to the point where you go, 'Yeah, well, of course.' Where there's no rational alternative.

Jonathan Ive

We have always thought about design as being so much more than just the way something looks. It's the whole thing: the way something works on so many different levels. Ultimately, of course, design defines so much of our experience.

Jonathan Ive

It's sad and frustrating that we are surrounded by products that seem to testify to a complete lack of care. That's an interesting thing about an object. One object speaks volumes about the company that produced it and its values and priorities.

Jonathan Ive

I think there's almost a belligerence - people are frustrated with their manufactured environment. We tend to assume the problem is with us, and not with the products we're trying to use. In other words, when our tools are broken, we feel broken. And when somebody fixes one, we feel a tiny bit more whole.

Jonathan Ive

It's very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.

Jonathan Ive

There's no learning without trying lots of ideas and failing lots of times.

Jonathan Ive

I think subconsciously people are remarkably discerning. I think that they can sense care.

Jonathan Ive

When something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical.

Jonathan Ive

What we make testifies who we are. People can sense care and can sense carelessness.

Jonathan Ive

What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, but it is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but the next day there is an idea. I find that incredibly exciting and conceptually actually remarkable.

Jonathan Ive