This conversation between Jony Ive and Patrick Collison has been doing the rounds—not entirely positively—but I believe for good reason:
Ive is wading through intellectually tough (and apparently unfashionable[1]) ground. His way of speaking is winding yet considered, which I find refreshing in a world where pithy takes are the norm.
Resonance
I had a visceral reaction about 12 minutes in, where the conversation centres on good design meaning going beyond utilitarianism and into resonance. Yep, that’s a bit lofty. But ‘going beyond’ is the point.
Resonance is what got me into design. I felt it in how certain books were bound, radios assembled, and balconies built. Assembled materials—words, colour, images, timber, metal—sometimes became more than the sum of their parts[2]. Those designers “gave a shit”, as Ive puts it.
Here’s a simple example of resonance from my childhood: the iconic Eveready Dolphin Mk2 torch that I’m pretty sure every other household in Australia had at some point:
Sure, it’s just a supermarket-level torch. But its details are more considered than they need to be. The button has a satisfying clack. The handle fits like a glove. Replacing the battery is easy enough for a small child to figure out. There are even little eyelets to make a sling.
This lowly torch is a joy to use. Who wouldn’t want to design the next Dolphin?
Swindle
Driven designers seek out opportunities to do work that resonates. It’s an itch that must be scratched. But that itch leaves us vulnerable to swindles: confusing shallow craftsmanship[3] for resonance, or worse, ignoring resonance entirely.
The satisfying clack of the Dolphin torch reminds me of Twitter’s pull-to-refresh gesture. Both are craft-driven moments of visceral resonance. But one serves us, the other divides and corrodes us. The swindle—and the deeper resonance—lies in the application of our craft.
To be clear, I’m not above this vulnerability. I’ve sometimes talked myself into ethically dubious or shallow work because the craft aspect was seductive. Part of me is writing this to hold my future self accountable.
A larger part of me has seen a collective loosening of scruples in our industry that should be discussed. It’s evident in the general criticism I see of this Ive talk; airing nuance and pondering ramifications is rejected as indulgent. Or, to quote Jurassic Park:
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
It’s now apparently cool to dunk on Ive, at least in my filter bubble. The criticism here is largely about his lack of concreteness. That’s dripping in irony considering his whole M.O. on going beyond utility. If this resonates, check out his Desert Island Discs episode from February. ↩︎
Going beyond ‘the sum of their parts’ is what separates craftsmanship from manufacturing. It’s (by definition) superfluous . I suppose fine art shares that definition too: art is something that exists despite having no inherent utilitarian value. ↩︎
This is what most irks me about designers fawning over new Figma features. They’re so busy playing with progressive blurs and grid layout that they forget whose lives they’re meant to be improving. ↩︎