Apple to have new vice president of industrial design – after one year
After the departure of Jony Ive, Evans Hankey was Apple's top "design goddess", but did not stay for long. Now there is to be a successor.
A colorful Apple logo: Since the departure of Jony Ive, the design department has changed considerably.
(Image: Generiert mit Midjourney durch Mac & i)
Apple apparently has a new vice president for industrial design. This is what Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman writes in his latest newsletter. The veteran Molly Anderson previously held the title of "Senior Director" and had a large part of the team under her since at least August. However, she was not at the same level as Alan Dye, who holds the title of Vice President of Human Interface Design.
Design heads back on the same level
Now Anderson is said to have received her promotion, writes Gurman. The position had been vacant for more than a year when Evans Hankey left – to join Apple's former Chief Design Officer Jony Ive's new company LoveFrom. In the meantime, it was said that Apple had abolished the title of Head of Industrial Design altogether. But this does not appear to be the case. However, there has been no confirmation of the report from Apple so far.
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Dye, who is now on the same hierarchical level as Anderson, remains in his position. He has held the post since Ive's departure in 2019. Apple initially continued to work with Ive, but then discontinued the collaboration with LoveFrom in 2022. It is unclear whether there are still contacts now – Ive now works for numerous companies, from fashion brands and car manufacturers to the British royal family and Airbnb.
A revamped design team
Before Anderson's promotion, Jeff Williams, the second man behind CEO Tim Cook and Chief Operating Officer, was unusually the highest authority on industrial design. Apple had previously struggled to find a suitable replacement for Hankey, writes Gurman –, partly because a lot of talent had left in recent years. "The company has lost almost all of the designers who worked under Ive, either through [departure to LoveFrom] or retirement." Apple had also feared that promoting one designer over others could lead to further unrest.
Despite the new clarity at the top of the Apple design team, there are apparently internal fears that there could be further departures. The reason is that the designers have "less ownership" in the product development process than they were used to under Ive. The engineering and operations departments have more power with regard to the direction of development than before. On the other hand, the younger designers probably don't know any different.
(bsc)
