Jerry Mancock – Apple’s Very First Designer

Before the likes of Jonathan Ive there was Jerry.  Jerry Manock.  He was Apple’s very first designer.

Recently he said this, and something about it has really stuck with me over the past few days (probably the concern of which I can relate to it!).

I get really upset when I’m walking downtown and there are three young people walking toward me–all with their heads down. I try to make eye contact to say hello, good morning, and nothing.

The disconnect there bothers me, and that’s going to get nothing but worse. I’ve got my iPhone and GPS and news anytime I want it. But my mindset is: I’m not married to this thing. I don’t have to look at it every five minutes. I can kind of use the technology for what I need. I feel pretty balanced that way. And I’ve made a conscious decision not to go with all the social-media stuff, because it takes up too much of my time. I can’t read a book. I can’t sketch. I can’t go to movies if I’m constantly tweeting somebody.

Jerry Manock

In 1977 Jerry Manock joined Apple as a design consultant and designed everything of the original Apple II (the first successful, mass produced personal computer) bar the circuit board, even down to the beige colour, Pantone 453.

If you want to read more about Jerry there is a great profile on Seven Days here, and read the full article (including that quote) on Co. Design.

2011: The Year In Lego

2011 has been quite a year, and what better way to look back and reflect on some of the most defining moments and major news stories than to see them recreated in Lego.

March 2011 Charlie Sheen is fired from Two And A Half Men after refusing rehabilitation to curb his increasingly wild lifestyle

April 2011 Crowds gather to watch the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first kiss as a married couple.

May 2011 Obama and his national security team watch the mission to kill Osama bin Laden unfold in real time (original photo here)

June 2011 Barack Obama and Angela Merkel play down the prospect of a double-dip recession

August 2011 Rioters clash with police on the streets of London

October 2011 Apple co-founder Steve Jobs passes away

October 2011 Fighting continues in Libya between the loyalists and anti-Gaddafi forces

October 2011 New Zealand beat France in the final of the Rugby World Cup

December 2011 The world’s largest Lego Christmas tree is unveiled at Kings Cross St. Pancras station

The full set can be viewed on the Guardian‘s on Flickr gallery.

Apple Gift Catalogue

Apple stores are a common sight on city streets nowadays, and the strong brand styling means that once through the doors you’d be hard pushed to distinguish San Francisco from London.  They stock exceptionally designed products and hardware, but broadly speaking their product line ends there.  The typical merchandise that numerous other brands offer is restricted to a modest range of official items, and limited strictly to the Company Store on Apple’s Campus.

Back in the early 80s however, Apple weren’t the dominant force we know and (mostly) love today.  They haven’t always been so selective in what you could buy with the iconic logo on, nor where you could buy it from.  Specifically, 1983 saw Apple launch a Gift Catalogue and you could mail order anything (and everything it would seem!) that Apple happily slapped their then colourful logo all over.

The catalogue starts out fairly run of the mill, with your usual t-shirts, mugs, and stationery, but then takes a turn to some less typical gift ideas in the form of a rug kit, a kite, and a frankly garish wall hanging!

$8 for an Apple Tote Bag, great value and still deceptively fashionable even today.

I’d love one of those belt buckles or lapel pins!

It’s hard not to come across with a slightly sarcastic or bemused tone towards the history of Apple merchandise, but deep down I’d dearly love one of everything in this catalogue!

Images via macmothership.com.

History Of The iPhone

With today’s launch of Apple’s iPhone 4S, what’s more apt to feature than a rather lovely animation on the history of the iPhone.

“The iPhone might be at the cutting edge of technology but it took a long time and many innovations to get there, take a trip through history and explore the people and technology that contributed to the iPhone becoming what it is today.”

CNET dedicated this video to the memory of Steve Jobs.

iDestroy – Destructive Apple Art

It was always going to be a big ask to follow the spirit raising dancing robot at the beginning of the week, but I’m sure you’ll agree that smashing up a range of Apple products in the name of art is calibre enough.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m a big Apple fan.  Not quite as big as a lot of people, but between home and work a Macbook Pro, iPods, iMacs and even an iPad adorn most of the surfaces that surround me.  At the other end of the scale there are people fuelled by an equally strong yet opposing force against the Apple brand.  I’m almost certain that Michael Tompert and Paul Fairchild aren’t in this latter group, but what they have done is channelled their passion for Apple into some really quite beautiful artistic pieces.

The rather creative technique used involved “going to town on” an iPhone, iPad and iPods with a manner of saws, bullets and aluminium baseball bats, fully destroying the products.

Lots more (and high-res) pictures over here.

Bye Bye Floppy Disks

You may or may not have heard, and you may or may not be surprised, that Sony have recently decided to cease production of their floppy disks.  Sony are (were) the largest manufacturer of floppy discs and this announcement essentially commits the 3.5″ storage device to the great electronics scrapheap in the sky.

Although I still own a USB disk drive (somewhere), their 1.44MB of space would barely allow for a single image taken on most digital cameras nowadays (let alone trying to squeeze the disk inside one!) so it’s no wonder that demand has dropped.  Apple‘s G3 iMac launched with no 3.5″ disk support back in 1998, maybe with huge foresight or maybe they were simply 10years too early and missed out on a bundle of sales, but whatever the reason was Sony have now decided that the time has come for them too.

When I was reading about this in the news, it reminded me of a set of posters I came across a while ago which illustrate just how many floppy disks it would take to install and run some of our most commonly used software today.  I do remember my childhood in front of an Atari and once we came across a floppy disk that had two games on it (two!), what a day that was.  Imagine trying to install Photoshop from that many discs, and then having space to store them!

Posters are available from Antrepo and the artworks are by Emre Basak.

That makes approximately 46 disks for iTunes 8, 358 for Photoshop CS4, 1760 for Sims 3 and a paultry 12 for Firefox 3.  Staggering that we even used them isn’t it!

I guess if you’re reading this from outside Europe you’ll wonder what all the fuss is about, Sony sold an apparent 12million floppy discs in Japan alone last year!

For a few of us Europeans it does seem that we hold these retro treasures close to our hearts, even if adapting their primary function for something else.  From beer mats in a retro themed pub, to ice scrapers for your car and even current CNC machine software, you can read and be inspired by the BBC’s 40 reasons we still use floppy disks.  Have you stumbled across an alternative use  for them, or are they just gathering dust in a drawer somewhere?

Also, do browse the “Floppy Disk Retrospective” gallery on Flickr, it’s a visual treat (especially this not so saucy pic of Bill Gates showing off).

Happy Birthday Photoshop

After reading the post over on Creative Review about Photoshop being 20 years old it got me thinking, could we have survived without it?

With numerous face lifts you’d be forgiven for thinking Photoshop was a lot younger.  It has come on absolute leaps and bounds in recent years since Creative Suite marched its way onto all our computers, but let’s not forget the humble origins of 1987′s ’Display’ (as ‘ImagePro’ was already taken) to the launch of Photoshop1.0 in 1990.  Adobe estimated 500 floppy disc sales of the program, just proving even the best of us get it wrong sometimes eh? (20million sales to date with CS5 to be launched this year).

Knoll (one of Photoshop’s original developers) mused “Before Steve Jobs came back, in their dark period, I’ve often thought that it’s quite possible that without Photoshop being an exclusive Macintosh product when it came out, Apple might not have survived.”

A bold statement.  And to be honest, it could quite easily be true given that in 1990 this is generally what Apple looked like:

A text heavy far cry from the colourful Apple we all know and (mostly) love today:

From a more personal point of view there are two things I’m almost certain of.  A lack of Photoshop would have forced me to be a better photographer, and secondly, CS1-4 would have been a bit cheaper.

Having said that, if it wasn’t Adobe it would have been someone else.  It may not have been eventually called Photoshop as this is (despite the pre-90s ’Display’ effort) and it may have looked a little different over the interface, but no doubt a similar functioning program would have come about.  Chances are someone, like the now historic Macromedia, would have brought us the market leader in photo manipulation, and had Photoshop not contributed so greatly to Adobe’s success, Macromedia may still exist today (I must admit I do occasionally still use Freehand!).

Everything from the magnetic lasso, to colour tweaks, layer masks, all the re-touch capabilities and everything else that is great about Photoshop, these would still grace our desktop as a slightly different looking icon and we would still be entertained by both the good and the bad of our “photoshopped” generation.

The fact that it has established its own verb says something.  People that are not designers or creatives in anyway, that have never used Photoshop in their lives, throw the word around just as commonly as “Wiki it” or “Google it”, which proves what a staple it is to our lives.

Yes we probably would have survived had Photoshop not existed, but we’re so much better off, and so much more entertained, that it has.

25 Years of Apple Mice

Happy New Year to you and all of that.

Apologies I’ve been a bit slow getting off the mark in 2010 but anyway, I’m back.

I came across this recently and, following the pre-Christmas launch of the aesthetic delight that is Apple’s Magic Mouse, it seems a very apt timeline to showcase.  Not only apt, but a visual journey demonstrating advancements in technology, manufacturing techniques and Apple themselves as a dominant force leading the way in the world of computing and all associated accessories.

A few highlights of the 25 year evolution of the Apple mouse:

Originally brought to my attention via Core77, these brilliant photographs are by Raneko and there is a whole bunch of more fantastic snaps on the Flickr stream.