Its been a long ten 10 years when I stepped into the world of design. First learning the academic basics, then tip-toeing my way through all sorts of companies. Ad-Agencies, Advertising Startups, E-commerce, Telecom Consulting, and even Digital marketing. It’s been quite a hectic journey, i learned a lot, but this is just the start.

I was thinking, God it’s 2015, i still remember signing up for my classes, filling up enrollment forms in 2005. The memories are so clear. Thus i decided to write about one of my favourite brands and how it has evolved over the last 10 years, and how it became the benchmark and blueprint for other companies.

There is no doubt that Apple is the largest and arguably the most influential technology company in the world. One of the major reasons for it’s success is that it embraced a user-centric approach to it’s design philosophy while the rest of the industry was still utilising engineers and sometimes even software developers to take their design decisions. Meaning people in the rest of the industry were taking design decisions, without having the academic or in-born talent/taste. Some people do have an in-born creative capability to take design decisions, but it’s difficult to prove without having a real-world example to demonstrate that particular creative skill.

Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he was the saviour of the company. He was clearly a visionary. He changed history and even he even changed the future. Apple went back into correcting their design flaws, distancing itself from gimmickry and embraced a new sleek aesthetic, a minimalistic approach to doing things.

Currently, Circa 2015. If one looks at the premium product line-up of many companies you can easily see how they are influenced from Apple with a monotonous set of phones, laptops, and tablets. This shows how some still lack their own vision, and are only playing the catch-up game. It shows some people are still just pretending to know their stuff, and emulating others, seeking a sort of artificial success.

To give a real example, the most talked about non-apple phone in terms of design in the past five years is quite likely the HTC One. From an industrial design perspective, it doesn’t differ quite much from it’s competitor the iPhone. It’s glass and aluminium. It’s slim, cold to touch in the morning. Very clearly Apple inspired. Though there is nothing inherently wrong in copying others. It points towards a grave moral issue. A lack of vision. Some speculate a lack of vision, manifests due to a lack of understanding the purpose of life, or willing to help society, or willing to help others. How can companies or even society progress when there is no imagination, no vision, no sense of market pulse, or no sense of purpose of life. Academic qualifications are great, Knowledge is a blessing, but without a visionary and someone to connect all the dots. Companies become just a bunch of random ideas, with no sense of unity. One can take a look at the human body as a great example, so many different departments working in perfect unity.

Recently Apple hired people from even more diverse backgrounds. You might have heard of Marc Newson, a highly talented Industrial designer, who’s designed everything from cars, planes, watches and even couches. It’s time to step out of the safe zone. It’s time to diversify not just project or product wise, but even in terms of recruitment. It’s time to think like a visionary!