Apple’s Chief Designer Says He’s Doing the Most Important Work of His Life Right Now

The Telegraph has scored a rare interview with Apple’s iconic Chief Designer, Jonathan Ive, who is getting knighted as you are reading these lines.

Visiting England for the “humbling” honor of getting knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, Ive granted The Telgraph an opportunity to interview him on matters relating to his tenure at Apple.

“All I’ve ever wanted to do is design and make; it’s what I love doing,” he said. “It’s great if you can find what you love to do. Finding it is one thing but then to be able to practise that and be preoccupied with that is another.”

“I’m very aware of an incredible tradition in the UK of designing and making, and so to be recognised in this way is really wonderful,” said Ive.

The design guru, born in 1967 in Chingford, Essex, said he got inspired by his father, who was a teacher.

“My father was a very good craftsman. He made furniture, he made silverware and he had an incredible gift in terms of how you can make something yourself.”

“We try to develop products that seem somehow inevitable. That leave you with the sense that that’s the only possible solution that makes sense,” he continued. “Our products are tools and we don’t want design to get in the way. We’re trying to bring simplicity and clarity, we’re trying to order the products.”

Commenting on the immense attention Apple pays to details, Ive said: “I think subconsciously people are remarkably discerning. I think that they can sense care.”

Asked to recall a design he was most proud of, Ive paused. He couldn’t pick one because, as he put it, the products he and his team are working on right now are the best ever.

“It’s a really tough one,” he said. “A lot does seem to come back to the fact that what we’re working on now feels like the most important and the best work we’ve done, and so it would be what we’re working on right now, which of course I can’t tell you about.”