A Return to Design

Apple’s redesign of iOS7 isn’t particularly “flat”, which is great. When you hear Jony Ive speak about design, you get a sense that he knows exactly what he’s talking about.

Not really ‘flat’. The gloss and letterpress effects aren’t entirely gone from iOS7.

And of course he does. Non-designers have no clue what design really is, and when they borrow terms like “skeumorphism” and introduce terms like “flat design” to their discourse, it detracts from what Apple’s iOS design really needed in terms of an overhaul — going back to basics.

Designed in California

In many ways, Apple’s keynote yesterday had perfectly personified its culture and personality. In doing so, they have succeeded in not only creating the future, they’ve succeeded in becoming clearer at what they do, and who they are.

To paraphrase Ive, design is more than how it looks — it’s how everything works and plays together.

And so “Designed in California” is now a thing to shout out about. Apple is, after all, based in California and is very profoundly influenced by the Silicon Valley tech culture, the Los Angeles arts world, and the surf vibes of Orange County, and in turn influences those subcultures. Apple is now taking that interplay and baking it into its design, all thanks to Jony Ive, and it looks amazing.

It’s no coincidence that the new OS X is named after a popular surf spot in Northern California, nor is the TV ad with which they ended off the conference. Apple is telling us now who they are, and we are listening. We, the fans, the designers, the creative types, are taking notice.

But perhaps the one thing that was more Californian than anything they showed us yesterday was the new iOS. I’m glad, personally, that they made it more weird, more alienating to a mass culture that has increasingly grown weary of Apple. More gradients, more soft lighting, more Helvetica, more California.