Apple: Land of Ingenious Logos

In reference to Nicole’s amazing post about the ’s ambiguous neighboring symbol: Not only did Apple manage to turn a Swedish campground symbol into the most functional key on the Mac keyboard–its logo, for those who didn’t know–

‘One of the deepest mysteries to me is our logo,’ wrote Jean-Louis Gassée, a former Vice-President of Apple computer (quoted in So far — The First Ten Years of a Vision) — ‘the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all crossed with the colours of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn’t dream of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope and anarchy.’ Legend has it that the company was conceived by Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak in a garage in California on April Fools’ Day 1976. Jobs was eating an apple at the time. Depicted in a deliberately expensive six-colour glory, the apple (with its visual pun on ‘byte’) was designed in 1977 by Regis McKenna.

Lust, knowledge, hope and anarchy? And people wonder why Mac users are zealous fanatics. This is one of those rare instances where the union between form and function whisk together and fold in (My verbs are victim to too much Food Network) so beautifully and so effortlessly. I’ve probably read that blurb about the logo numerous times–and even now, am baffled by its elusive ingenuity.