This past weekend, I came across this video from the PBS special about Steve Jobs after he passed away that resonated with me a lot:

“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you’re life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

Dieter Rams, who was featured in critically acclaimed documentary Objectified is one of the most influential design gurus in the world. He has created countless products for Braun, the German white goods company. And he is a man who has influenced Apple’s head of design, Jonathan Ive. Here’s a piece of what he wrote exclusively for the The Daily Telegraph about what makes Apple special:

“Without doubt there are few companies in the world that genuinely understand and practise the power of good design in their products and their businesses. Probably the first example was Peter Behrens and his work for the German company AEG, in the early part of the 20th century. He might be considered to be the founder of corporate identity. Adriano Olivetti was close behind as he transformed his father’s Italian company, Olivetti. Having become aware of this scarcity at the start of my career in the 1950s, I am sorry to report that the situation does not seem to have improved to this day.

I have always observed that good design can normally only emerge if there is a strong relationship between an entrepreneur and the head of design. At Apple this situation exists – between Steve Jobs and Jony Ive.

I am always fascinated when I see the latest Apple products. Apple has managed to achieve what I never achieved: using the power of their products to persuade people to queue to buy them. For me, I had to queue to receive food at the end of World War II. That’s quite a change.

They understand that design is not simply an adjective to place in front of a product’s name to somehow artificially enhance its value. Ever fewer people appear to understand that design is a serious profession; and for our future welfare we need more companies to take that profession seriously.”

Apple is probably the only tech company with a head of design. This makes them both a tech and an industrial design firm… And actually marketing can be added to the mix…

For those looking for some base concepts on the idea of simplicity, here are John Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity:

1. Reduce – The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction
2. Organize – Organization makes a system of many appear fewer
3. Time - Savings in time feel like simplicity
4. Learn – Knowledge makes everything simpler
5. Differences – Simplicity and complexity need each other
6. Context – What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral
7. Emotion – More emotions are better than less
8. Trust – In simplicity we trust
9. Failure – Some things can never be made simple
10. The One – Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful

• Apple Human Interface Guidelines
• iPhone Human Interface Guidelines
• Windows Vista UX Guidelines
• Windows XP Design Guidelines
• Nokia UI Style/Visual Guidelines
• GNOME Human Interface Guidelines 2.2
• KDE 4.0 Visual Guide
• Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines
• Comcast Style Guide
• Usability.gov Research-Based Web Design and Usability Guidelines
• Writing an Interface Style Guide