Apple wants to hire lead designer from inside, but having problems

Evans Hankey, Apple's vice president of industrial design, is leaving, and the company is having trouble finding a replacement.

Hankey and Alan Dye took leadership positions within the team after Jony Ive's departure. A report on October 21 said that Hankey plans to stick around for the next six months.

According to Bloomberg, turnover at Apple is interfering with efforts to replace Hankey, who had been at the company for around 20 years. The company reportedly doesn't have a clear succession plan for the design position.

Some team members also followed Ive when he started his own company, LoveFrom.

Ive moved into a part-time role in 2015 before departing in 2019. That same year, other Apple designers left, including Rico Zorkendorfer, Julian Hoenig, Miklu Silvanto, and Daniele De Iuliis.

Since then, at least 15 of Ive's senior design team members have left Apple. According to a source, Hankey will leave in spring 2023 — but doesn't plan to join LoveFrom.

A small group of senior industrial designers at Apple includes Duncan Kerr, Bart Andre, Richard Howarth, Peter Russell-Clarke, and Ben Shaffer. Howarth, who has been with Apple for 26 years, briefly served as head of industrial design between 2015 and 2017 but reportedly struggled in the position.

Apple probably isn't going to hire a brand-new person for such an important position. So instead, looking to current employees or former designers is more likely.

"It would need to be someone internal," said a member of Apple's design group, adding that hiring from another company would be the "death of the team."

9 Comments

tht 23 Years · 5654 comments

About 2 years ago

Senior executive positions are management positions. Management as in attending meetings, personnel evaluation, dealing with money and people. It takes a certain type of personality and if you really enjoy doing technical things, giving that up. It's always hard to find the right person for such positions. Companies typically find someone.

retrogusto 16 Years · 1140 comments

As someone who admittedly does not fully understand how the industrial design process works in a large company, it seems funny that they need a whole team of full-time people to design a small range of products, most of which barely change in their appearance from year to year. I’d be interested to know where all of the work goes. Even the Watch Ultra and the Mac Studio are essentially evolutions of existing designs, and the other products are nearly identical in outward appearance from year to year, with big changes occurring only rarely (with the Siri Remote redesign a notable exception). But maybe the trick is in maintaining the look as the technology inside develops.

DAalseth 6 Years · 3067 comments

retrogusto said:

As someone who admittedly does not fully understand how the industrial design process works in a large company, it seems funny that they need a whole team of full-time people to design a small range of products, most of which barely change in their appearance from year to year. I’d be interested to know where all of the work goes. Even the Watch Ultra and the Mac Studio are essentially evolutions of existing designs, and the other products are nearly identical in outward appearance from year to year, with big changes occurring only rarely (with the Siri Remote redesign a notable exception). But maybe the trick is in maintaining the look as the technology inside develops.

I’ve been involved with this sort of thing, albeit on a much smaller level. It is a real balancing act to keep the devices from not changing radically between iterations. I’m sure there were loud “discussions” when they subject of the camera bump came up. Design wants one thing, engineering says something else is needed, the laws of physics can trump both of them. Keeping all sides on the same script is the job of the lead designer. I have a feeling that the Mac Studio started as an evolution of the Mini. “But you need a cooling system HOW big?” But they wanted to maintain a common familial feel with the older design. The next Mini will likely share some design choices from the Studio. Then there’s the details. One side saying keep the design clean and seamless, and another one that wants a dozen ports of various kinds on the front and back. One says it has to have a cooling fan, another says no moving parts, and on and on. It’s not an easy job. In many ways getting the engineers, and designers, and circuit board team, and all pushing in the same direction is like the proverbial herding cats.

danox 11 Years · 3442 comments

Hire from within Apple remember the retail fiasco's two outside duds in a row, Apple needs a person who can hit the ground running.

JinTech 9 Years · 1061 comments

danox said:

Hire from within Apple remember the retail fiasco's two outside duds in a row, Apple needs a person who can hit the ground running.

They ought to bring Ron Johnson back!

But back on the subject, I do hope they find someone within as an outsider could disturb Apple's design fabric.