Overview

In 2016, Apple published a limited edition anthology, chronicling the last 20 years of Apple's designs simply titled Designed by Apple in California. The book is dedicated to the memory of Steve Jobs.

“The idea of genuinely trying to make something great for humanity was Steve’s motivation from the beginning, and it remains both our ideal and our goal as Apple looks to the future,” said Jony Ive, Apple’s Chief Design Officer. “This archive is intended to be a gentle gathering of many of the products the team has designed over the years. We hope it brings some understanding to how and why they exist, while serving as a resource for students of all design disciplines.”

The book was written and curated over an eight-year period by Jony Ive and features photos by award-winning photographer Andrew Zuckerman. All of the photos were shot in a deliberately spare style that has become a hallmark of Apple's design aesthetic. The books 450 images illustrates Apple’s design process as well as its finished products.

Jump to any section:

• Summary
• Chapters
• Jony Ive's Introduction
• See also…
• Video Version

Summary

‍In this episode, Daniel Scrivner explores the book 'Designed by Apple in California' and reads the introduction written by Jony Ive. The book is a collection of Apple's designs over the last 20 years and serves as an archive of their work. Jony Ive dedicated the book to Steve Jobs, highlighting his essential role in the creation of these products. The book showcases Apple's design aesthetic and the evolution of forms and materials. It emphasizes the importance of simplicity and communication in product design.

Chapters

• ‍(00:00) Introduction‍
• (01:19) Designed by Apple in California‍
• ‍(03:13) Objective Representation of Work‍
• ‍(04:11) Collaboration and Design Process‍
• ‍(05:05) Evolution of Forms and Materials‍‍
• ‍(06:05) Simplicity and Communication‍‍
• ‍(‍07:01) Dedication to Steve Jobs‍‍
• ‍(08:24) Book Overview‍‍
• ‍(09:51) Johnny Ive's Perspective

Jony Ive's Introduction

This is a book with very few words.

It is about our products, their physical nature, and how they were made.

While this is a design book, it is not about the design team, the creative process, or product development. It is an objective representation of our work that, ironically, describes who we are. It describes how we work, our values, our preoccupations, and our goals. We have always hoped to be defined by what we do rather than by what we say.

‍The actual products are, of course, incontrovertible. We have attempted to develop an approach to representing them that is equally impartial. The photography is analytical and spare, free from personal voice and its consequent subjectivity.

We begin this archive with the translucent iMac of 1998, and we conclude with the Apple Pencil of 2015. We have not included all our work in the interim, only those products that seem significant, that demonstrate learning, or for which we simply have affection.

The decision to stop somewhere, to not include our current work, and to not reveal the design of future products was fantastically hard. Many of us have worked with one another for more than 20 years, and we have learned a lot together. The products in this book are the result of a profoundly close collaboration between many different groups. We behave as one team with a singular goal; how we work enables what we make.

‍‍Designing and making are inseparable. Seeing something made, you appreciate its nature. Understanding the remarkable transformation of anonymous materials into recognizable products, you begin to understand that we don't arbitrarily create form. Fundamental ideas and shapes are derived directly from our knowledge of materials and manufacturing processes: bending a single piece of aluminum to make a stand or cutting a hole to create a handle rather than adding multiple parts.

‍We attempt to develop forms that achieve an integrity between external surfaces and internal components. Look at the first iMac. So much of the form was developed to be coherent and harmonious with the primary internal component, the cathode ray tube. You can see how forms and materials have evolved, driven by display technologies and components, as we have transitioned from spherical cathode ray tubes to flat-panel liquid crystal displays.

‍We strive, with varying degrees of success, to define objects that appear effortless. Objects that appear so simple, coherent, and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative.

‍Although we have been doing this for many years, creating something simple never seems to get any easier. Simplicity is not the absence of complexity. Just removing clutter would result in an uncomplicated but meaningless product. I think a product that is truly simple somehow communicates, with striking clarity, what it is and what it can do.‍

‍Above all, I have come to feel sure that human beings sense care in the same way we sense carelessness. I do think we respond, maybe not consciously, to something much bigger than the object. We sense the group of people behind the products, people who do more than make something work, people who sincerely care about the smallest unseen details, as well as the big idea and primary function.

For us, these products and projects have come to mark the passage of time. We cannot look at this archive without remembering the people and stories so essential to each product's creation. I cannot look at it without thinking of Steve Jobs.

This book is dedicated to him.

This is a body of work that would not exist without Steve. The many thousands of people who worked together would never have worked together. These products would never have been designed, never have been made, never have been used.

The idea of genuinely trying to make something great for humanity, to make a contribution to culture and to our community, has not been a sentimental afterthought. It has been our fundamental motivation, ideal, and goal.

We hope that this archive is seen as intended: a gentle gathering of some of the products we have designed over the last few years. We hope it brings some understanding to how and why they exist.

See also…

For more on Apple, Jony Ive, and Steve Jobs check out the following:

• Jony Ives' CCA Commencement Address and Advice for the Graduating Class‍
• Steve Job's "The Lost Interview from 1995"‍
• Steve Jobs “Stanford Commencement Address“ in 2005
• Book Breakdown: “I, Steve: Steve Jobs In His Own Words”‍
• Book Breakdown: “Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success”‍
• Book Breakdown: “Finding the Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Creative Talent”

Enjoy!

Daniel Scrivner

Founder of Ligature: The Design VC

Video version

You can also watch me break down this essay on YouTube and subscribe so you never miss a video.

Daniel Scrivner (00:02.05)
Today, we're going to do a really interesting short essay breakdown. And again, you know, in these short episodes, I'm covering essays, speeches, letters, I'm covering a handful of things. Today, what I'm going to cover is, something that's relatively unique, which is, you know, we're in the middle of this prolific sprint covering Steve Jobs and Apple. And we're doing that both through the lens of, you know, Steve's emails, or books that are written by him or about him.

We're also covering a handful of basically perspectives from Steve's close collaborators. Everyone from Ken Seagal, who worked with Steve on the you know, the naming the iMac and the think different campaign in his book insanely simple. Tony Fidel, who worked with Steve on the iPod and later wrote build Mike Moritz, you know, Nolan Bushnell finding the next Steve Jobs, where I'm trying to do a very thorough kind of 360 degree look at Steve.

And obviously it'd be really remiss if I didn't cover the perspective of Johnny Ive. And, you know, in 2016, Apple published a limited edition anthology chronicling the last 20 years of Apple's designs, simply titled Designed by Apple in California. And at the time, you know, I was very excited about this book. I purchased a copy. Little did I know it was a limited edition. And if you actually go online now, you can't find it unless you go and find someone else's copy. Luckily.

I have one. I'll try at the very end to open this up and show you at least a little bit of what it looks like. But there's, Johnny wrote a, like, basically a dedication to Steve as the introduction at the beginning of the book. That's just lovely. And I thought, you know, we have to include this. This has to be one of the short episodes that we do as part of this series. So let me just read you, I'm first going to read you kind of Johnny's commentary about this book. And then we'll jump into actually the introduction at the beginning of the book.

This is Johnny Ive. And I think this is in the press release about the release of this book. The idea of genuinely trying to make something great for humanity was Steve's motivation from the beginning. And it remains both our ideal and our goal as Apple looks to the future. This archive is intended to be a gentle gathering of many of the products the team has designed over the years. We hope it brings some understanding to how and why they exist while serving as a resource for students of all design disciplines. In the book, just really quickly.

Daniel Scrivner (02:16.502)
You know, it's absolutely massive. This thing's probably 18, 20 inches tall, probably 16 inches wide. Um, and it's filled with just gorgeous photography. And so it was written and curated over an eight year period, which is incredible by Johnny Ive. It features photos by award-winning photographer, Andrew Zuckerman, uh, who has a very iconic, uh, photography style. Um, including the one that's in this book where basically everything shot on just a kind of, uh, pristine white background. Uh, it's just, just immaculate photography.

All the photos were shot in a deliberately sparse style. It's become the hallmark of Apple's design aesthetic and there's 450 images inside here. So that's kind of the quick background. Let me go ahead and jump in to the introduction. And this was again written by Johnny Ive and it's just his, it's a dedication again to Steve Jobs as a collaborator. This book, this is a book with very few words. It is about our products, their physical nature and how they were made.

While this is a design book, it's not about the design team, the creative process, or product development. It's an objective representation of our work that ironically describes who we are. It describes how we work, our values, our preoccupations, and our goals. We have always hoped to be defined by what we do rather than by what we say. The actual products are, of course, incontrovertible. We have attempted to develop an approach to representing them that is equally impartial.

The photography is analytical and spare, free from personal voice and its consequent subjectivity. We begin this archive with the translucent iMac of 1998, and we conclude with the Apple Pencil of 2015. We have not included all of our work in the interim, only those products that seem significant, that demonstrate learning, or for which we simply have affection. The decision to stop somewhere to not include our current work and to not reveal the design of future products was fantastically hard.

Many of us have worked with one another for more than 20 years, and we have learned a lot together. The products in this book are the result of a profoundly close collaboration between many different groups. We behave as one team with a singular goal. How we work enables what we make. Designing and making are inseparable. Inseparable. Seeing something made, you appreciate its nature. Understanding the remarkable transformation of anonymous materials into recognizable products.

Daniel Scrivner (04:39.778)
you begin to understand that we don't arbitrarily create form. Fundamental ideas and shapes are derived directly from our knowledge of materials and manufacturing processes, bending a single piece of aluminum to make a stand or cutting a hole to create a handle rather than adding multiple parts. We attempt to develop forms that achieve an integrity between external surfaces and internal components. Look at the first IMAX.

So much of the form was developed to be coherent and harmonious with the primary internal component, the cathode ray tube. You can see how forms and materials have evolved, driven by display technologies and components as we have transitioned from spherical cathode ray tubes to flat panel liquid crystal displays. We strive with varying degrees of success to define objects that appear effortless. Objects that appear so simple, coherent, and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative. It's just...

Incredible to read these two sentences again. We strive with varying degrees of success to define objects that appear effortless. Objects that appear so simple, coherent, and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative. Although we have been doing this for many years, creating something simple never gets, and it never seems to get any easier. Simplicity is not the absence of complexity. Just remove the clutter, just removing the clutter results in an uncomplicated but meaningless product.

I think a product that is truly simple somehow communicates with striking clarity what it is and what it can do. Say that again. I think a product that is truly simple somehow communicates with striking clarity what it is and what it can do. Above all, I've come to feel that human beings sense care in the same way we sense carelessness. I do think we respond, maybe not consciously, to something much bigger than the object.

We sense the group of people behind the products, people who do more than make something work. People who sincerely care about the smallest unseen details, as well as the big idea and the primary function. For us, these products and projects have come to mark the passage of time. We cannot look at this archive without remembering the people and stories so essential to each product's creation. I cannot look at it without thinking of Steve Jobs. This book is dedicated to him. This is a body of work that would not exist without Steve.

Daniel Scrivner (07:01.058)
The many thousands of people who work together would never have worked together. These products would never have been designed, never have been made, never have been used. The idea of genuinely trying to make something great for humanity, to make a contribution to culture and to our community has not been a sentimental afterthought. It has been our fundamental motivation, ideal and goal. We hope this archive is as intended, a gentle gathering of some of the products we have designed over the last few years.

We hope it brings some understanding to how and why they exist. Absolutely beautiful. That's the introduction to make, sorry, to design by Apple in California. And it's also a dedication of the entire book to Steve. You know, and again, Johnny says as much, you know, this is a body of work that would not exist without Steve. The many thousands of people who work together would never have worked together. These products would never have been designed. They would have never been made and they would have never been used all without Steve Jobs.

You can find the text of this. You can go and look at the notes and kind of some of my bolding for emphasis. You can also look at a bunch of glossary of hardware manufacturing terms that are in the book that I really enjoyed at outlieracademy.com slash designed by Apple. Now, really quickly, I'm going to try to push my mic aside and show you a little bit about the book because it's gorgeous. One second here. Take out. So this I'll just show you.

This really quickly comes with the book and I can't even, I mean, it's absolutely massive. I have to hold it back here. Comes with the book and includes, you know, a ton of hardware manufacturing tools and technologies that Apple's used over the last 20 years. I found it so fascinating. I personally hand transcribed all of the terms and you can go and find that in the full episode in the book breakdown of this book. You can find the link wherever you're listening or reading this. Just look near in the notes for that.

And now just let me show you a little bit inside the book. And again, the book is absolutely massive. It's what it looks like from the side. Front, you can't even see anything. In traditional Apple fashion, not even it's gonna show up on the camera. But the title designed by Apple in California is literally de-bossed into the side, and then the Apple logo is de-bossed onto the front. And I'll just do this really quickly.

Daniel Scrivner (09:22.498)
The book is just full of stunning, stunning. I don't even know if it's gonna appear. Stunning, stunning, stunning photography. And you can see tools that actually feature some of the tools and manufacturing techniques. I don't even know if it's gonna work in the book. We'll stop there, but if you can get yourself a copy, if it would be meaningful to you, I would highly recommend it. And again, this has been Johnny Ives' perspective on working with Steve Jobs and the impact that he had. And again, in his own words, the body of work in this book, the incredible products that Apple produced starting in 1998, I think 1995, would not exist without Steve. The products wouldn't have been designed, they wouldn't have been made, and they would never have been used.