While Apple’s new icon and design elements in iOS 7 are certainly radically different from prior versions of iOS, not everyone is a fan of the changes. Some folks are even questioning the design skills of those involved in, for instance, the new stock app icons. According to Matthew Panzarino of TheNextWeb, there’s a good reason for that: the icons weren’t designed by Jony Ive or Apple’s design team at all. Instead, they were put together by Apple’s marketing team!
…the designs are so different that you might even have been surprised that they came out of the same teams that were behind the home screen on iOS 6. Well, you’d be right. We’ve been talking to people all week about the new designs of iOS and multiple sources have given us a better picture of how it went down inside Apple in the last few months.
First of all, many of the new icons were primarily designed by members of Apple’s marketing and communications department, not the app design teams. From what we’ve heard, SVP of Design Jony Ive (also now Apple’s head of Human Interaction) brought the print and web marketing design team in to set the look and color palette of the stock app icons. They then handed those off to the app design teams who did their own work on the ‘interiors’, with those palettes as a guide.
[…] It’s also clear from what we’ve seen and heard that what we’re seeing of iOS 7 right now is a ‘mid stride’ snapshot. The work on design and development is still going full tilt, and what was presented this week is firmly a ‘work in progress’. We’re told, for instance, that some builds of iOS used onstage at the conference by presenters are already newer than the ones pushed out on Monday.
The report also reveals that the current design in iOS 7 Beta 1 is very much a “work in progress,” and significant changes will likely be put into place leading up to the final release. Think of the current design as a mere placeholder. There are big changes in store that we have yet to feast our eyes upon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F0ErUMeT7uE
So, why did Jony Ive and co. decide to hand things over to the Marketing gang? Simple: He needed some fresh sets of eyes. Panzarino sums up the inspiration behind the idea in a single sentence: “Apple needed a stylistic and psychological break with the design language of its past, and Ive used ‘new’ blood to create that break.”
Fascinating stuff. If nothing else, it should bring hope to those who aren’t fond of the current design! For the full details, check out the original report over at TNW!
