The new iPad launch featured something that caught our eye. A glance at the next step in the ever evolving brand. In this case it looks like a return to the colourful rainbow style originally introduced by Rob Janoff. We thought we could mark this interesting step by catching up on the apples that have previously been picked from the Macintosh tree.
We start our journey with a surprise. Well it was a surprise to me to discover that the origins of Apple Inc. were as visually convoluted and superfluous as a logo can get, with an ornate design drawn by co-founder Robert Wayne, that depicts Isaac Newton contemplating under an apple tree. Rob Janoff soon took the biggest leap toward the iconic apple form with a rainbow-filled bitten shape that seems to have a myriad of references. The bite (or byte) symbolising knowledge as in the Garden of Eden while others cite a reference to the father of modern computing, Alan Turning who died taking a bite from an apple poisoned with cyanide. The disjointed rainbow colours have an anarchic feel about them, beginning to capture more of the spirit of Apple’s future and willingness to be brave.
Years later, in 1997, Steve Jobs would begin to introduce stages of simplification. As he moved the icon into the modern fashion, the neutral colours and metallic feel would come to be emblematic of the sleekness, simplicity and zen-like temper they would bring to the itching fingers of everyday technophobes who were being excluded by the complexity of modern technology.
Now that Apple moves into a post Jobs, era a return to the bold and brave spirit of earlier times seems fitting for a brand that is making a clean break with the past and focusing hopes on the future. Crucially though, this has not come without a change of it’s own which the new gradation embraces as Apple moves into an era beyond just pixels. It will be interesting to see how this new image is used, and recieved, in the future. What do you think? A step forward or a return to the traditional? We want to hear your thoughts.
