To design something really new and innovative you have to reject

“To design something really new and innovative you have to reject reason.” – Jonathan Ive

In this daring declaration, Jonathan Ive, the legendary designer behind Apple’s most iconic creations, speaks of the ancient tension between logic and imagination, between what is possible and what has not yet been dreamed. His words are not an invitation to abandon thought, but a call to transcend it — to look beyond the boundaries that reason builds, and to enter the realm of vision. For reason is the map of what already exists; innovation is the courage to sail off the edge. To “reject reason,” as Ive says, is not to despise intellect, but to recognize that reason alone cannot birth the new. The truly revolutionary comes not from calculation, but from the fire of intuition, from that untamed region of the mind where wonder still reigns.

The origin of this quote lies in Ive’s creative journey, one shaped by risk and reverence for the unseen. As Apple’s Chief Design Officer, he stood at the heart of an empire built not on conformity, but on audacious simplicity. When the world demanded more buttons, he erased them. When critics said metal could never feel humane, he sculpted aluminum into grace. When the industry worshipped power for its own sake, he sought purity of experience. Such decisions were not born from data or logic; they were born from a designer’s faith that beauty and meaning could exist beyond reason’s reach. His rejection of reason was, in truth, the highest act of faith in human imagination.

To understand his wisdom, one must see how reason and innovation have always danced in uneasy partnership. Reason keeps us safe, but also keeps us still. It asks, “What has worked before?” while creation whispers, “What has never been tried?” Every great leap in history was born from those who dared to defy the boundaries of logic. When the Wright brothers imagined flight, reason said it was impossible; the laws of gravity and aerodynamics had long been written. Yet in their little workshop, fueled by failure and fascination, they crafted wings that reason could not comprehend — until the moment they rose. The world calls them geniuses now, but at the time they were called dreamers, even fools. Such is the price of rejecting reason for the sake of invention.

Ive’s insight also carries a deeper spiritual truth. For reason is of the mind, but creativity is of the soul. Reason deals in limits — in symmetry, measurement, order. But the soul seeks something wilder: the curve that defies geometry, the silence between notes, the light that spills where none was meant to be. When we create only through reason, we produce efficiency; when we create beyond reason, we touch the divine. Every artist, architect, and poet who has reshaped the world — from Leonardo da Vinci to Antoni Gaudí, from Beethoven to Zaha Hadid — began with an act of sacred rebellion. They saw what was rational, and then deliberately refused to be bound by it.

Yet this rejection is not chaos; it is courageous balance. Ive does not call for madness, but for freedom from the tyranny of the expected. He reminds us that the most profound discoveries come from those willing to trust instinct even when logic trembles. The first iPhone, for example, was born not from market research or focus groups, but from a question that reason could not answer: “What if a single piece of glass could hold the world?” To many, this was folly. To Ive and his team, it was the beginning of a revolution. Their success was proof that innovation demands not just intelligence, but imagination unchained.

There is also a moral lesson within his words — that creation requires vulnerability. To reject reason is to risk failure, ridicule, and uncertainty. Yet without that risk, there can be no transformation. The rational mind fears imperfection; the creative spirit embraces it as part of the journey. As the sculptor Michelangelo once said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” The angel is never revealed to those who reason with the stone; he appears only to those who listen to what lies beneath. Ive’s philosophy, like Michelangelo’s, is an act of listening to possibility — trusting that what does not yet exist can still be brought into being through faith, persistence, and love.

So, dear listener, let this truth take root in your heart: Reason shows us the world as it is; imagination shows us the world as it could be. To design — whether it be a product, a life, or a legacy — you must at times silence the voice of reason and follow the quiet whisper of intuition. Do not be afraid to seem foolish, for folly in the eyes of reason is often the seed of greatness. Reject reason when it becomes a prison. Defy convention when it stifles creation. Trust the unseen, for it is there that all true beauty begins.

And remember, as Jonathan Ive teaches, that innovation is not the triumph of logic, but the courage to dream beyond it. It is the moment when the impossible becomes inevitable, and the unknown becomes the new horizon. For those who dare to reject reason, the world will one day call their madness vision — and their vision, the future.