How Steve Jobs inspired the name of Jony Ive’s new company

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LoveFrom, the name of Jony Ive's new design studio, is inspired by a Steve Jobs ideal.
LoveFrom, the name of Jony Ive's new design studio, is inspired by a Steve Jobs ideal.
Photo: Allie Osmar Siarto/Flickr CC

News that Jony Ive is leaving Apple to start his own design company is rocking the tech world this afternoon. Apple has already signed up to be the first client for Ive’s design firm called LoveFrom.

In a new interview discussing his departure from Apple, Ive explained how Apple co-founder Steve Jobs helped inspire the name for his new company.

“There was an employee meeting a number of years ago and Steve was talking,” Ive told Financial Times He [said] that one of the fundamental motivations was that when you make something with love and with care, even though you probably will never meet… the people that you’re making it for, and you’ll never shake their hand, by making something with care, you are expressing your gratitude to humanity, to the species.”

Jony Ive and Steve Jobs enjoyed a close relationship during their time at Apple. Steve would visit Jony’s design lab often and usually ate lunch with him. Despite their friendship, Jobs wasn’t afraid to call Jony out, like the one time when Steve called him vain.

Ive said that he identified so much with Steve’s description of making things that he decided to call his new company ‘LoveFrom’ because it succinctly speaks to what he does.

“Really it is the culmination of what I’ve learned and intend to continue learning from the last 30 years. It will be a collection of creatives from around the world that come from quite diverse areas of expertise.”

Details of LoveFrom will probably come out as it gets closer to launching in 2020. Ive says that one familiar face we can expect to see him continue working with is his designer buddy Marc Newson who joined Apple in 2014. The two have collaborated on a number of designs outside of Apple and will now be unleashed to toy around with any ideas they want.

 

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