Surf Pop: Apple’s Stylistic Return to California

Why Apple is re-aligning itself with its contemporaries and the subcultures it helped create

A Return to Design

Apple’s redesign of iOS7 isn’t particularly “flat”, which is great. When you hear Jony Ive speak about design, you get a sense that he knows exactly what he’s talking about.

Not really ‘flat’. The gloss and letterpress effects aren’t entirely gone from iOS7.

And of course he does. Non-designers have no clue what design really is, and when they borrow terms like “skeumorphism” and introduce terms like “flat design” to their discourse, it detracts from what Apple’s iOS design really needed in terms of an overhaul — going back to basics.

Designed in California

In many ways, Apple’s keynote yesterday had perfectly personified its culture and personality. In doing so, they have succeeded in not only creating the future, they’ve succeeded in becoming clearer at what they do, and who they are.

To paraphrase Ive, design is more than how it looks — it’s how everything works and plays together.