Jonathan Ive Talks Design, Failure, and More in Appearance at London's Design Museum

Jonathan Ive, Apple's Senior VP of Design, made a rare public appearance at the Design Museum in London yesterday (via Cult of Mac). At the event, he discussed everything from his view on the future of design to his opinions on failure with museum director Deyan Sudjic.

We shouldn’t be afraid to fail - if we are not failing we are not pushing. 80% of the stuff in the studio is not going to work. If something is not good enough, stop doing it.

The talk with Sudjic also included a roomful of up-and-coming design students, with Ive offering additional perspective on the design process and rejection.

"The best ideas start as conversations. A small change at the beginning of the design process defines an entirely different product at the end. At the start of the process the idea is just a thought - very fragile and exclusive. When the first physical manifestation is created everything changes. It is no longer exclusive, now it involves a lot of people." Ive also mentioned, "There are 9 rejected ideas for every idea that works."

jony_ive_design_museum

Photo by @nickcorston)

Unfortunately for those design hopefuls listening to Ive, the odds of working in his team are slim. Apple's Industrial Design team is notoriously difficult to get into, in large part because its members never leave the company. The eighteen-person team hasn't seen a single member leave for fifteen years. "I like to work in a small team," Ive told Sudjic. "There is only 18 of us on the design team. Nobody has ever left."

Ive also touched on how to gain experience in the field, design studies in schools today, and the difference between making something different and making it better.

Our goal is to desperately make the best products we can. We’re not naive. We trust that if we’re successful and we make good products, that people will like them. And we trust that if people like them, they’ll buy them. And we figured out the operation and we’re effective. We know what we’re doing, so we’ll make money, but it’s a tough sequence.

Ive has famously remained out of the spotlight for much of his tenure at Apple, but has opened up considerably since taking on new responsibilities for software design and more recently with the impending launch of the Apple Watch. Recent appearances have included an awards ceremony hosted by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and a Vanity Fair summit in San Francisco.

Update: Dezeen also has a very thorough overview of Ive's interview.

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Render Front Page Tech

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. iPhone 17 Pro's alleged design via Front Page Tech Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone...
iCloud General Feature Redux

iPhone Users Who Pay for iCloud Storage Receive a New Perk

Thursday March 20, 2025 12:01 am PDT by
If you pay for iCloud storage on your iPhone, Apple has a new perk for you, at no additional cost. The new perk is the ability to create invitations in the Apple Invites app for the iPhone, which launched in the App Store last month. In the Apple Invites app, iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations for any occasion, such as birthday parties, graduations, baby showers, and more. Anyone ...
iOS 18

Top 5 New Features Coming in iOS 18.4

Friday March 21, 2025 3:26 pm PDT by
We're not getting new Siri Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.4 as expected, but the upcoming update does have quite a few new additions that will be worth upgrading for. We've rounded up the five best features to look forward to, and if you're not running the beta, you can expect to get access to these in early April. Priority Notifications If you have an iPhone or iPad that supports...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock

iOS 19 Coming in June With These New Features

Thursday March 20, 2025 2:04 pm PDT by
While the first iOS 19 beta is still more than two months away, there are already plenty of rumors about the upcoming software update. Below, we recap the key iOS 19 rumors so far. visionOS-Like Design In January, the YouTube channel Front Page Tech revealed a redesigned Camera app that is allegedly planned for iOS 19. According to Front Page Tech host Jon Prosser, the Camera app...
Generic iOS 18

Apple Seeds iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Release Candidate With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More

Monday March 24, 2025 10:07 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week after Apple released the fourth betas. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update. With iOS 18.4, Apple is adding the Priority Notifications...
airpods max 2024 colors

Don't Buy Into Apple's Hype About AirPods Max Gaining Lossless Audio

Monday March 24, 2025 4:24 pm PDT by
Apple today announced that AirPods Max with a USB-C port will be gaining support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio with a firmware update next month, alongside the release of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS 15.4. For context, audio files are typically compressed to keep file sizes smaller. There are lossy compression standards like MP3, and Apple's own Advanced Audio Codec...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Iridescent Search

Foldable iPhone Expected to Launch Next Year, Costing Around $2,000

Monday March 24, 2025 3:43 am PDT by
Apple will launch its long-rumored foldable iPhone next year with a ~$2,000 premium price tag attached, expects well-connected Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. Gurman's comments on Apple's launch plans for its first foldable device appeared in the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter. Earlier this month, the reporter said Apple's foldable iPhone could be arriving "as early as 2026,"...
ios 19 messages app

Here's What Apple's iOS 19 Messages App Might Look Like

Tuesday March 25, 2025 11:52 am PDT by
Leaker Jon Prosser today shared a mockup of what he says the Messages app will look like in iOS 19, demoing an interface with rounded, translucent bubble-shaped navigation buttons at the top and softer, rounder corners for the keyboard and word suggestions. Jon Prosser's Messages app mockup The return button, a button for going back to the Messages list, and the FaceTime button have a deeper...

Top Rated Comments

hipnetic Avatar
135 months ago
Seems fitting. When it comes to user interface design, Ive is an expert on Design Failure.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
KdParker Avatar
135 months ago
Hey, I've seen what they do to people who want to leave in Sons of Anarchy and mob movies :D

Quote:
The eighteen-person team hasn't seen a single member leave for fifteen years

All jokes aside. I think it is a bad idea to have a design team that has been so static for almost a generation.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rGiskard Avatar
135 months ago
Here's a few quotes that were left out:

"If a design overheats and throttles the GPU (https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1815601) so hard it performs worse than the previous generation, then that's the price of beauty. Nothing is free, deal with it!"


"Form is paramount, ergonomics are for dork engineers. If a user must give his computer a reach around to access an SD Card reader, then that is the price of thin."

"If a user can access the diabolical innards of a design, then it is a failure. The ultimate goal is a perfectly sealed disposable computer, because we here at Apple love the environment and want to change the world!"
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple Knowledge Navigator Avatar
135 months ago
The best ideas start as conversations.
TC: Let's make a watch. Let's make some really... expensive... watches.
JI: Do you like gold?
TC: Sure!
JI: See you in two years, Tim.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
H2SO4 Avatar
135 months ago
"There are 9 rejected ideas for every idea that works." Lesson to Samsung: get rid of the half-baked concepts and ideas *before* you get to production.

Jeez. Someone had to lower the thread to Samsung bashing. Can we just leave it alone for even one article?
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MellowFuzz Avatar
135 months ago
Quote:
The eighteen-person team hasn't seen a single member leave for fifteen years

All jokes aside. I think it is a bad idea to have a design team that has been so static for almost a generation.

Their marketing must be as static, which would explain why Apple thinks U2 is cool.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)