Steve Jobs, a designer at heart

We at WDD are deeply saddened by Steve Jobs’ passing… And while the Internet is buzzing with people’s heartfelt emotions about his life’s impact and legacy, we’d also like to pay tribute with this modest homage.

A designer at heart, design was at the core of Steve’s life and that translated to revolutionary and yes we can also say ‘magical’ products. But he says it better: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

And we can only imagine how many lives have been influenced by his vision and how deep he reached into all the corners of the world…

In this post, we’ve collected some rare photos of Steve as well as some famous quotes that depict his visions and personality.

Comments are open for you to share how he impacted your career as a designer and as a person, we sure know that he has deeply influenced us! What did you learn from him and how has his legacy impacted you? Where will YOU take his legacy next? Please share your candid thoughts below…

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.”

“We’ve gone through the operating system and looked at everything and asked how can we simplify this and make it more powerful at the same time.”

“It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much.”

“It’s better to be a pirate than to join the Navy.”

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products.”

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

“My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better.”

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

“Look at the design of a lot of consumer products — they’re really complicated surfaces. We tried to make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don’t put in the time or energy to get there. We believe that customers are smart, and want objects which are well thought through.”

And one more thing…

Walter Apai

Walter Apai is a web designer from Vancouver, Canada who runs and owns the popular WebdesignerDepot.com blogs. He's also a successful business entrepreneur running multiple websites and businesses.