INDUSTRIAL DESIGN: the lesson Jony Ive taught me

Jony Ive is probably the closest thing industrial design has had to a rock star. For a lot of designers my age, he represented the version of the job we wanted to believe was possible.

Talent, taste, timing, an incredible team, and a CEO who gave design real power. That combination is almost impossible to recreate, which is why his Apple years still cast such a long shadow.

But that is the lesson. Reputation can be more powerful than the work.

Every project tied to him still gets attention because he earned that trust decades ago. Ferrari, OpenAI, anything he touches becomes a design event before anyone knows if the work deserves it.

That does not mean he was the greatest designer ever. It means he built one of the strongest personal brands industrial design has ever seen.

Do good work, but do not assume the work will speak for itself. Build trust, share your thinking, and give people a reason to remember what you stand for before you need them to.

Because hard-earned trust can shape not only how people see you, but how they see your work.

Image credit: Marcus Dawes, “Jonathan Ive (OTRS),” cropped from original, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.