‘What you share with the world is what it keeps of you,’ a simple lyric from Noah and the Whale that so effortlessly sums up the legacy of the man in the black turtleneck. The death of Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs has been widely publicised and yet, so much has been left unknown about him. Whether, you were a fan of his or not, its undeniable that his vision has penetrated all our worlds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A man who understood how integral design is to how we experience and engage with a product. The need to simplify our chaotic lives in every way possible, launching products without manuals, having only one button controlling everything and employing basic human instincts into the core of the product.

That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex (Jobs)

His keen eye on all the smaller things is one of the reasons why Apple is the most successful company in the world today.

As soon as we see the all-important ‘i’ in font of a word, we immediately associate it with Apple, iPhone, iPad, iPod, the list goes on and on. The obvious assumption would be that Apple has trademarked its famous ‘i’ but no, there was never any need. Apple’s convincing marketing has reassured us that any word or product with that vowel is related to the company. The thought of even copying it is rather stupid. This little letter is the tenth most used word in the English language and our favorite pronoun. So, why did Apple find the need to use it? The answer is obvious. We as consumers associate with it so well because we feel that this technology belongs to us and was made just for us. Genius wouldn’t you say?

Jobs stated that:

Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.


The Apple Logo is a testament to his clear vision, a sleek and elegant representation of the company. First multi-coloured but now modernized by making it monochromatic, smooth lined, including zero text and above all else a symbol of pop culture. It was designed to portray a lust for knowledge and incase you manage to confuse an apple and a tomato, Rob Janoff, designer of the logo, included the bite.

Serif, sans-serif, kerning – gibberish to most folk but another reason why Jobs was so unique, he actually knew the difference between typefaces and what all this type terminology meant. After dropping out of college, Jobs continued to go to the classes he was interested in and one of those was Calligraphy. If he hadn’t, we might be sitting at our computers with only boring Times New Roman to use. Jobs’s motto of ‘staying hungry, staying foolish’ has allowed us to express ourselves better in this digital age.

The creative community has been altered due to Jobs’ impact. His part ownership of Pixar Animation brought us the first computer animated feature, Toy Story. Artists like David Hockney use the artistic apps on the iPhone and iPad to create their work. He comments that ‘ it is a great drawing instrument, marvellous range of marks, if you get into it. Very subtle colour you can get, probably for an amateur it can be a bit too complicated but you’ve got a dozen different brushes on it and remember, the iPad drawing, you can always go back to them.’ Apple offers so many advantages where art and music are concerned. Outcomes that aren’t easily achieved on a PC as the technology just isn’t geared in that way.