I’m not going to pretend it makes obvious sense, but famed former Apple designer Jony Ive and his firm LoveFrom will soon be working for Airbnb. Yes, the company that primarily makes it easy for you to rent someone else’s home needs design help, and they’re going to the man best known for turning consumer tech on its head — as well as the occasional all-diamond diamond ring, a Christmas tree that is actually just a tree, and a magazine cover with no content.
So if you’ve been been put off renting one of Airbnb’s recently introduced, exorbitantly priced Luxe accommodations because they have too many furnishings, perhaps this is just the ticket? Dude loves minimalism.
Airbnb is calling the deal a “special collaboration” as well as a “multi-year relationship to design the next generation of Airbnb products and services,” and that Ive will help develop Airbnb’s internal design team as well — which has apparently undergone some turmoil. The Information is reporting three senior designers have recently left the team and design chief Alex Schleifer has been moved to a part-time role.
Ive and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky have apparently been friends for years, with Ive going so far as to pen a 2015 mini-profile of the Airbnb chief for Time Magazine, praising the company’s website design.
Maybe he can fix the company’s unfortunately shaped logo.
Ive still counts Apple as a client, by the way, even though he left last November. We had quite a few thoughts at the time:
