Category: Web Design & Dev.

Steve Jobs and the True Meaning of Design

How Apple’s co-founder revolutionized our understanding of what design really means

Steve Jobs with lamp

Steve Jobs examining a product with his characteristic intensity and attention to detail

In a world obsessed with aesthetics, Steve Jobs stood apart with a more profound understanding of design. The Apple co-founder and visionary didn’t just create beautiful products – he fundamentally reimagined what design meant in the context of technology and consumer experiences.

Jobs, in an interview with Rob Walker for a 2003 New York Times Magazine profile on the creation of the iPod, articulated this philosophy in what has become one of his most celebrated observations:

“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

This deceptively simple statement encapsulates a revolutionary approach to product creation that would transform multiple industries and set a new standard for how we think about the objects that fill our lives.

Beyond Aesthetics: Jobs’ Design Philosophy

Jobs’ perspective on design represented a significant departure from conventional thinking. While many companies treated design as a final cosmetic step – a way to make functional objects attractive – Jobs saw design as the fundamental process through which function itself was determined.

For Jobs, design wasn’t about decoration but integration. It meant creating a seamless unity between:

  • Hardware and software
  • Form and function
  • Technology and human experience
  • Engineering requirements and user desires

This holistic approach meant that at Apple, design wasn’t a department but a philosophy that permeated every aspect of product development. It wasn’t about making trade-offs between beauty and function, but finding solutions where both could be achieved simultaneously.

The Formative Influences

Jobs’ understanding of design wasn’t formed in a vacuum. It was shaped by diverse influences throughout his life:

  • His adopted father Paul Jobs, who taught him the importance of crafting even unseen parts with care
  • His calligraphy course at Reed College, which gave him an appreciation for typography and aesthetic precision
  • The minimalist Zen aesthetic he encountered through his exploration of Buddhism
  • His admiration for the Bauhaus movement and its principles of form following function
  • His relationship with industrial designer Jony Ive, who helped translate Jobs’ vision into physical reality

Jobs once explained that his father insisted on properly finishing the backs of fence panels and cabinet drawers, even though no one would see them. “He loved doing things right,” Jobs recalled. This attention to unseen details would become a hallmark of Apple products under his leadership.

Design Philosophy in Action

Throughout Apple’s product history, we can see concrete examples of Jobs’ design philosophy manifested in revolutionary products:

  • The Macintosh (1984): Not just a visually distinct computer, but one that fundamentally changed how humans interact with machines through its graphical user interface
  • The iPod (2001): Behind its sleek exterior was a revolutionary interface (the click wheel) that solved the problem of navigating thousands of songs with minimal physical controls
  • The iPhone (2007): Eliminated the physical keyboard not merely for aesthetics, but to create a device that could transform its interface to match the user’s needs at any moment
  • The MacBook Air (2008): Its thinness wasn’t just for show, but represented a fundamental rethinking of what components were truly necessary in a laptop

In each case, the distinctive appearance of these products was not the goal but the result of deeper thinking about how they should work to best serve human needs.

The Apple Design Process

Under Jobs’ leadership, Apple developed a distinctive design process characterized by:

  • Relentless simplification: Repeatedly asking what could be removed rather than what could be added
  • Prototyping: Building numerous physical models to test and refine ideas
  • Integration of teams: Bringing together designers, engineers, and marketers from the beginning
  • Focus on experience: Starting with the desired user experience and working backward to the technology
  • Attention to detail: Obsessing over elements that most companies would consider insignificant

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Apple’s approach was its willingness to make difficult engineering choices to achieve design goals. While other companies might compromise user experience to accommodate technical limitations, Jobs insisted that technical challenges be solved to deliver the intended experience.

Beyond Apple: The Broader Impact

Jobs’ design philosophy has extended far beyond Apple products to influence multiple industries:

  • Consumer Electronics: The entire industry has shifted toward more integrated, experience-focused design
  • Software Development: User experience (UX) has become central to software design rather than an afterthought
  • Retail: Apple Stores revolutionized retail design by focusing on experience over transaction
  • Education: Design thinking has been embraced as a problem-solving methodology in schools and universities
  • Business Strategy: Companies increasingly recognize design as a strategic advantage rather than a cosmetic consideration

Today, even industries far removed from technology speak of “Apple-like experiences” as the gold standard for user-centered design.

Challenges and Criticisms

While Jobs’ design philosophy has been tremendously influential, it has not been without its challenges and critics:

  • Cost implications: The pursuit of ideal design solutions often results in higher product costs
  • Repairability concerns: Integrated designs can make products harder to repair or upgrade
  • Environmental impact: The emphasis on new, seamless products can contribute to electronic waste
  • Accessibility trade-offs: Some design decisions prioritize aesthetics over universal accessibility

These tensions highlight that even the most thoughtful design philosophy involves trade-offs. The ongoing challenge for those influenced by Jobs’ approach is to balance its principles with other important considerations.

The Enduring Legacy

Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, but his design philosophy continues to influence how we think about the creation of products and experiences. The idea that “design is how it works” has become so deeply embedded in modern product development that it’s easy to forget how revolutionary it once was.

Perhaps the most powerful aspect of Jobs’ approach was his insistence that great design isn’t about compromise but synthesis – finding the point where seemingly conflicting requirements (beauty and function, simplicity and capability, intuitiveness and power) could be resolved through creative thinking.

In a world increasingly shaped by digital experiences, Jobs’ holistic understanding of design remains more relevant than ever. As we navigate the challenges of creating products and services for an interconnected world, his reminder that true design goes far deeper than appearance continues to guide innovators across industries.

Join the Conversation

How has Jobs’ design philosophy influenced your thinking about products or experiences? Can you think of examples where “design is how it works” has been particularly well (or poorly) applied? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The Art of Brand Storytelling: How Stanley Hainsworth Creates Iconic Brands

The master storyteller behind Nike, Lego, and Starbucks reveals his approach to building unforgettable brands

Creating a loved brand by telling a story: Tether

Stanley Hainsworth has been the creative force behind some of the world’s most recognizable brands. As creative director at Nike, Lego, and Starbucks—all brands that have become iconic through exceptional design—he’s mastered the art of brand storytelling. Most recently, he completed the redesign of the Gatorade bottle, adding another major brand transformation to his impressive portfolio.

Now at the helm of Tether, his own design studio and retail space in Seattle, Hainsworth continues to shape how companies connect with consumers. His approach goes beyond logos and color palettes to something deeper: uncovering and communicating the authentic story at the heart of each brand.

In this exclusive interview, Hainsworth shares his insights on what makes a brand truly resonate with people and why storytelling is the key to creating brands that people don’t just recognize, but genuinely love.

Creating Brand Personas That Connect

According to Hainsworth, the most powerful brands develop distinct personalities that consumers can relate to on a human level. “Companies like Apple have a persona,” he explains. “You could describe what Apple is as a person, because of the personality they’ve created.”

This personification is what transforms a mere product or service into a brand that people feel emotionally connected to. It’s why Apple isn’t just a tech company—it’s the creative, innovative friend who thinks differently. It’s why Starbucks isn’t just coffee—it’s the sophisticated yet approachable “third place” between work and home.

When working with tech startups and other emerging companies, Hainsworth’s first priority is uncovering their unique story. “The first thing we have to figure out is their story—what sets them apart in the marketplace,” he says. Without this narrative foundation, even the most visually stunning design work will lack the substance needed to create lasting connections with consumers.

The most effective brand storytelling isn’t fabricated—it excavates the authentic truth about a company’s origins, values, and purpose, then presents it in a way that resonates emotionally with its audience.

Three Iconic Brand Journeys

Hainsworth’s experiences at Nike, Lego, and Starbucks provided him with unique insights into how different types of brands connect with consumers. Each company required a distinct approach to storytelling:

Nike: The Power of Attitude

“Nike is an attitude,” Hainsworth observes. Unlike brands that can be defined by a specific visual style, Nike’s identity is built around a mindset—the determination and excellence embodied in their iconic “Just Do It” ethos. This attitude-first approach allows Nike to evolve visually while maintaining a consistent emotional connection with consumers.

Lego: Product as Hero

At Lego, Hainsworth took a different approach. “For Lego, the brick was everything,” he explains. Even when the company faced challenges and experimented with product extensions, its success always returned to a focus on their iconic building brick. Hainsworth’s experience at Lego taught him the importance of knowing a brand’s core strength and remaining true to it.

Starbucks: Experience Above All

Starbucks presented yet another model of brand development. “When I started there, the idea was that we weren’t a coffee company—we were a people company serving coffee,” Hainsworth recalls. This subtle but powerful distinction positioned Starbucks as an experience-driven brand rather than a product-driven one, informing everything from store design to packaging to marketing.

Each brand requires its own unique storytelling approach. The key is identifying whether a brand’s strength lies in its attitude (like Nike), its product (like Lego), or its experience (like Starbucks)—then building the narrative from that foundation.

The Gatorade Transformation

One of Hainsworth’s more recent high-profile projects was redesigning the iconic Gatorade bottle. This wasn’t merely a cosmetic update but a comprehensive rethinking of the brand’s physical touchpoint with consumers.

The Tether team approached the redesign with three key elements in mind:

  1. Create an athletic stance with broad shoulders and a narrow waist that would be easier to grip during athletic activity
  2. Incorporate the Gatorade bolt both aesthetically and functionally as a transparent window showcasing the beverage
  3. Highlight the iconic orange cap that has become a signature brand element

The redesign resolved practical issues with the previous bottle—such as loose labels collecting condensation, a wide mouth that led to spills, and an oversized body that was difficult to grip with one hand—while simultaneously strengthening the brand’s visual identity.

The results were so successful that Gatorade accelerated the bottle’s rollout from a three-year plan to a one-year plan, bringing the new design to athletes nationwide much sooner than originally scheduled.

The Gatorade project exemplifies how effective brand design addresses both functional needs and emotional connections. The new bottle not only performs better for athletes but also strengthens the brand’s visual identity and storytelling.

The Untapped Potential of Untold Stories

When Hainsworth left Starbucks, many expected him to pursue opportunities with cutting-edge, highly visual brands. Instead, he expressed interest in working with established but story-deficient companies like Microsoft and Walmart.

“I wanted to work with Microsoft and Walmart—two great American brands that have never told their story well,” Hainsworth explains. “They both have incredible stories, if you think about the startups that they were at the time—it’s unbelievable. Bill Gates, what he went through, and his story: it’s never been told well. They’ve never used it to their advantage. They’ve become a product company with no soul.”

This perspective reveals Hainsworth’s belief that even the most successful companies can reach new heights by effectively telling their authentic stories. It’s not about fabricating a narrative but about uncovering the genuine human elements that already exist within the company’s history and bringing them to the forefront.

Every company has a story worth telling. The brands that consistently miss opportunities for emotional connection are often sitting on powerful narratives that they’ve simply failed to unearth and communicate effectively.

Building Tether: A New Kind of Creative Agency

In 2008, Hainsworth founded Tether, bringing together his experiences from Nike, Lego, and Starbucks to create a different kind of creative agency. Located in Seattle’s historic Pioneer Square, Tether combines a creative gallery space with a full-service agency that works across disciplines.

What makes Tether unique is its emphasis on creating “emotional brand connections” rather than simply designing attractive visuals. The agency works across brand identity, product design, advertising, digital design, packaging, branded entertainment, and retail design—always with the goal of telling compelling brand stories.

Since its founding, Tether has grown to approximately 75 employees with a second studio in Portland, Oregon. The company has worked with an impressive roster of clients including BMW, Red Bull, Gatorade, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and many others.

Hainsworth describes Tether’s work environment as “casual intensity”—a place that’s fun but maintains high expectations for creative output. This culture reflects his belief that the best creative work emerges from diverse, collaborative teams working in an environment that encourages both passion and precision.

Tether’s success demonstrates that Hainsworth’s storytelling approach to branding isn’t just philosophical—it delivers concrete results for clients across industries and scales, from startups to global corporations.

The Philosophy of Anticipatory Design

Perhaps the most profound insight from Hainsworth is his observation about what truly great companies do: “Great companies read your soul. They give you something you didn’t even know that you needed.”

This statement captures the essence of what Hainsworth strives for in his work—creating brands that don’t just meet expressed needs but anticipate unexpressed ones. It’s the difference between responding to what consumers say they want and intuiting what will genuinely delight them before they’ve even conceptualized it themselves.

This approach explains why the most beloved brands often seem to be reading our minds, offering products and experiences that feel simultaneously surprising and inevitable. They’re not simply reacting to market research; they’re proactively shaping desires and expectations through intuitive understanding of human nature.

For designers and brand strategists, this philosophy suggests looking beyond immediate consumer feedback to deeper human truths. It means asking not just “What do people want now?” but “What might people love that they haven’t yet imagined?”

The ability to anticipate unspoken needs and desires—to “read the soul” of consumers—is what separates truly iconic brands from merely successful ones. It’s design thinking at its most intuitive and human-centered.

The Future of Brand Storytelling

As brands navigate an increasingly complex and digitally-driven marketplace, Hainsworth’s emphasis on authentic storytelling feels more relevant than ever. In a world where consumers are bombarded with marketing messages, the brands that rise above the noise will be those with genuine narratives that resonate on a human level.

The lessons from Hainsworth’s career offer valuable guidance for any company seeking to strengthen its connection with consumers:

  • Know your core strength—whether it’s an attitude, a product, or an experience—and build your brand story around it.
  • Uncover authentic narratives from your company’s history, values, and purpose rather than manufacturing artificial stories.
  • Address both functional needs and emotional connections in every consumer touchpoint, from packaging to digital experiences.
  • Anticipate unexpressed needs by looking beyond market research to deeper human truths and desires.
  • Create a distinct brand persona that consumers can relate to on a human level.

By embracing these principles, brands can move beyond mere recognition to achieve what every company truly desires: a place in consumers’ hearts that transcends transactions and creates lasting loyalty.

Join the Conversation

What brands do you feel have told their stories most effectively? Which ones seem to “read your soul” and anticipate needs you didn’t know you had? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Cut and Paste One Line of Code to Make Any Website Editable

A powerful browser trick that lets you temporarily modify any website’s content (and why you should use it responsibly)

Computer geek working on code

Have you ever wanted to edit the web pages of another website? This simple line of code makes it possible. Of course, you can’t actually edit the actual web page, but you can edit the page as you see it on your screen.

This browser trick enables you to modify any webpage’s content directly in your browser—making text changes, editing images, or even restructuring layouts. It’s a fascinating glimpse into how web content works and can be quite useful for various purposes, from mockups to pranks (though please use it responsibly!).

Let’s explore how this works, what you can do with it, and some important things to keep in mind when using this powerful browser capability.

The Magic Command: How It Works

The JavaScript snippet below activates what’s called “content editable mode” in your browser. When executed, it tells your browser to make the entire body of the webpage editable, essentially turning it into a document you can modify:

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

To use this code:

  1. Visit the website you want to edit
  2. Copy the above code
  3. Paste it into your browser’s address bar
  4. Press Enter
  5. Click on any text on the page and start editing

This works because modern browsers include a built-in content editing feature originally designed to support rich text editing applications. By enabling this mode through JavaScript, we’re essentially telling the browser to treat the entire webpage as an editable document.

While I’ve tested this in Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, it also works in modern browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Safari. For some browsers, you may need to type “javascript:” manually as browsers sometimes remove this prefix when pasting for security reasons.

Practical (and Legitimate) Uses

While this technique is sometimes associated with creating fake screenshots, there are many legitimate and useful applications:

Helpful Applications

  • Web design mockups – Quickly show clients how design changes would look
  • Content editing – Test different headlines or copy without changing code
  • UI/UX testing – Experiment with layout changes
  • Presentations – Modify websites for demonstration purposes
  • Removing distractions – Temporarily hide annoying elements when reading
  • Humor – Creating harmless pranks or jokes (just don’t share them as real!)

As a web developer, I often use this technique to quickly demonstrate to clients how their website would look with different text or layout adjustments. It’s much faster than creating mockups in Photoshop or making actual code changes.

The Ethics: Important Considerations

As mentioned in the original description, this is one of the ways scammers create fake screenshots, fake Adsense & affiliate earnings, and even fake Paypal transactions. Being aware of this technique helps you be more skeptical of “too good to be true” screenshots you might see online.

Important ethical considerations:

  • Never use edited screenshots to deceive people or misrepresent information
  • Don’t create fake financial information or transactions
  • If sharing edited screenshots for legitimate purposes, clearly label them as edited
  • Remember that changes are only visible on your computer—no one else can see them
  • Refreshing the page will revert all changes

Understanding that screenshots can be easily manipulated this way is important digital literacy in today’s world. Always verify important information from authoritative sources rather than relying solely on screenshots.

Advanced Tips and Tricks

Once you’ve enabled editing mode, there’s a lot more you can do beyond just changing text:

  • Edit images – Right-click on images and select “Inspect” (in most browsers) to modify the image source URL
  • Change colors – Use inspection tools to modify CSS properties
  • Add or remove elements – Delete sections by selecting and pressing delete, or copy/paste to duplicate content
  • Save your changes – Take screenshots to preserve your edits
  • Disable editing – Refresh the page to return to the original version, or run this code: javascript:document.body.contentEditable='false'; document.designMode='off'; void 0

For more permanent solutions, consider creating a browser bookmarklet by creating a new bookmark and pasting this code as the URL. This allows you to toggle editing mode with a single click whenever you need it.

Browser Magic at Your Fingertips

This simple JavaScript trick provides a fascinating glimpse into how web content works and offers a powerful tool for mockups, testing, and content experiments. The ability to temporarily modify any webpage opens up creative possibilities for designers, developers, and curious web users.

Just remember that with great power comes great responsibility. Use this knowledge ethically and be aware that others might not. The next time you see an unbelievable screenshot online, remember how easy it is to modify webpage content with just a line of code.

Join the Conversation

Have you used this technique before? What creative or practical applications have you found for browser content editing? Share your experiences in the comments below!