Apple Inc. is facing a significant shift in its design leadership as another veteran designer, Duncan Kerr, has announced his impending departure from the company. Kerr, who has been with Apple for over 25 years and was a key member of Jony Ive's legendary design team, informed the company of his decision to leave, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified as the move has not been made public.
Kerr's exit marks the near-complete dissolution of the design group that worked under Ive, a team that helped Apple pioneer iconic products such as music players, smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches. Since Ive's own departure in 2019, the company has seen an exodus of top designers, including Jody Akana, Joe Tan, Anthony Ashcroft, Andrea Williams, Jeremy Bataillou, and Eugene Whang.
The outflow continued over the past year, with major players like Bart Andre, Colin Burns, Shota Aoyagi, and Peter Russell-Clarke also leaving the company. In February, Apple's longest-running senior designer, Bart Andre, retired after more than 30 years at the company.
Kerr, who joined Apple in 1999, was instrumental in developing several generations of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. According to an in-depth story from Wallpaper, Kerr is credited with coming up with the "tap" notification system for the original Apple Watch.
With Kerr's departure, the last remaining industrial designers from the Ive era are Richard Howarth, Molly Anderson, and Ben Shaffer. The exodus of designers has raised concerns about Apple's ability to maintain its design leadership in the post-Jony Ive era.
Evans Hankey, who succeeded Ive as Apple's head of industrial design, left the company last year. Alan Dye, the company's chief of interface design, remains in place, but his team has also lost several members in recent months.
A large portion of the departing designers have joined LoveFrom, Ive's new design company, which is working on projects with Airbnb Inc., Ferrari NV, Moncler SpA, and other brands. Ive has remained out of the Apple spotlight in recent years but participated in a joint interview with Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and Laurene Powell Jobs in 2022.
Over the past year and a half, Apple's team of designers has reported directly to Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams. This change in reporting structure has reportedly irked some of the artists and sculptors, who were accustomed to working closely with a manager from the design world.
The brain drain of Apple designers after Ive's departure led to the company being unable to replace Hankey directly, as reported by Bloomberg News at the time. This latest departure of Duncan Kerr further highlights the challenges Apple faces in maintaining its design leadership and innovation in the absence of the core team that helped shape the company's iconic products over the past two decades.
