To be honest, the work of Jonathan Ive is the main reason I became a designer. A few weeks back, The London Evening Standard did a nice piece on the newly-knighted industrial designer. Here are some highlights from the article:

What makes a great designer?

It is so important to be light on your feet, inquisitive and interested in being wrong. You have that wonderful fascination with the what if questions, but you also need absolute focus and a keen insight into the context and what is important – that is really terribly important. Its about contradictions you have to navigate.

When you are coming up with product ideas such as the iPod, do you try to solve a problem?

There are different approaches – sometimes things can irritate you so you become aware of a problem, which is a very pragmatic approach and the least challenging.

What is more difficult is when you are intrigued by an opportunity. That, I think, really exercises the skills of a designer. It’s not a problem you’re aware of, nobody has articulated a need. But you start asking questions, what if we do this, combine it with that, would that be useful? This creates opportunities that could replace entire categories of device, rather than tactically responding to an individual problem. That’s the real challenge, and that’s what is exciting.

Is it easy to get sidetracked by tiny details on a project?

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. I think that is where having years and years of experience gives you that confidence that if you keep pushing, you’ll get there.

Do consumers really care about good design?

One of the things we’ve really learnt over the last 20 years is that while people would often struggle to articulate why they like something – as consumers we are incredibly discerning, we sense where has been great care in the design, and when there is cynicism and greed. It’s one of the thing we’ve found really encouraging.

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Eric Courtney is a Visual Communication Design Major at Kent State University. In his spare time he reads up on music, tech, and business, freelances, and plays rock and roll with his childhood friends.