Jony Ive left Apple in 2019 to start a design firm, LoveFrom, which now finally has a website. If you’re a fan of Ive’s work, you’ll know what to expect: a flat design with a minimalist feel to it.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS:
- Ive left Apple in summer 2019 to start a design firm
- He and fellow designer Marc Newson founded LoveFrom
- Nearly two and a half years later, LoveFrom gets a website
- LoveFrom counts Apple as one of its primary clients
- LoveFrom will also design Ferrari’s electric vehicle
What is Jony Ive’s LoveFrom?
LoveFrom is described as a design collective that gathers designers, engineers, filmmakers and various creative artists under one roof. The design shop works in close partnership with “leaders and founders,” according to the very first message posted on the LoveFrom website.
As you may expect from the man who had led efforts to flatten and simplify the look and feel of iOS, the website is very minimalist in terms of looks. It uses impactful typography and subtle animations to get its message across. At the time of writing, the website had no navigation, no sub-sections or any posts aside from the following introductory message:
LoveFrom is a creative collective.
We are designers, architects, musicians, filmmakers, writers, engineers and artists.
You may know us from our past work.
We are obsessed with traditions of creating and making.
Fanatically devoted to excellence.
Insatiably curious.
We collaborate with leaders and founders.
We work on projects for joy.
We develop our own ideas.
Love & fury
Sarah Douglas, Wallpaper.com:
Both the wordmark and ensuing text are set in a new typeface, LoveFrom Serif, which is inspired by John Baskerville’s letterforms and based on studies of his original punches and matrices. From this basis, the design team created an expanded type family with flexible, scalable digital faces in multiple weights and optical sizes.
An accompanying press release from LoveFrom says each character has been “lovingly redrawn, refined and meticulously crafted over the past two years.” The collective looks forward to “continuing the conversation about our work, our team and our creative process.”
Ive + Steve: Best friends and design partners
Ive struck an unlikely creative partnership with Steve Jobs after the Apple co-founder had returned to Apple in the late 1990s. The two men had worked together for nearly fifteen years on what would become Apple’s most iconic products, including the translucent iMac all-in-one, the iPod music player, Mac notebooks and, of course, iPhone, iPad and other devices.
“We had lunch together most days and spent our afternoons in the sanctuary of the design studio,” Ive wrote in his appreciation piece in the Wall Street Journal Magazine commemorating the tenth anniversary of Steve Jobs’ passing. “Those were some of the happiest, most creative and joyful times of my life.”
Check out LoveFrom by visiting lovefrom.com.
The backstory of the LoveFrom name
From Ive’s remembrance piece in the Wall Street Journal Magazine:
When Steve left Apple in the eighties, he called his new company NeXT. He was very good at names.
After nearly 30 years, I left Apple, driven by my curiosity to learn and discover new ways to make a useful contribution. It is Steve’s powerful motivation that informed the name of my next adventure, LoveFrom.
While I am absurdly fortunate that I still collaborate with my dear friends at Apple, I am also terribly lucky that I get to explore and create with some new friends.
Aside from consulting Apple’s design team (which Ive himself used to lead for many years) on new product initiatives, like the creation of the 2021 iMac, LoveFrom has signed agreements with other big-name clients. LoveFrom will design Ferrari’s next electric vehicle as part of a long-term, multi-year partnership, Ferrari’s holding company announced via a press release.
Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky previously said in an October 2020 blog post that his company had hired LoveFrom to design the next generation of Airbnb products and services. At LoveFrom, Ive works alongside fellow designer Mar Newson and several other ex-Apple colleagues that he has managed to recruit to LoveFrom.