APPLE

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL; previously Apple Computer, Inc.) is an American multinational
corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal
computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of
computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating
system; the iTunes media browser; the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software; the
iWork suite of productivity software; Aperture, a professional photography package; Final Cut
Studio, a suite of professional audio and film-industry software products; Logic Studio, a suite of
music production tools and its iOS Mobile Operating System. As of August 2010, the company
operates 301 retail stores in ten countries, and an online store where hardware and software
products are sold.

Established on April 1, 1976 in Cupertino, California, and incorporated January 3, 1977, the
company was previously named Apple Computer, Inc., for its first 30 years, but removed the
word "Computer" on January 9, 2007, to reflect the company's ongoing expansion into the
consumer electronics market in addition to its traditional focus on personal computers. As of
September 26, 2009, Apple had 34,300 full time employees and 2,500 temporary full time
employees worldwide and had worldwide annual sales of $42.91 billion in its fiscal year ending
September 26, 2009.

For reasons as various as its philosophy of comprehensive aesthetic design to its distinctive
advertising campaigns, Apple has established a unique reputation in the consumer electronics
industry. This includes a customer base that is devoted to the company and its brand, particularly
in the United States. Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United
States in 2008, and in the world in 2008, 2009, and 2010. The company has also received
widespread criticism for its contractors' labor, environmental, and business practices.

A Visual History of the Apple Logo

The evolution of the Apple logo has been an interesting one. The company was founded in 1976,
and incorporated in 1977. 30 Years later, the iconic logo for this company is only slightly
modified from one of it’s earliest versions. Let’s take a look at how the logo for Apple has
changed from 1976 to 2007…
The Original

This original logo was designed by Ron Wayne, who started Apple with Jobs and
Woz in 1976. In 1977 White sold his portion of Apple back to Jobs and Woz when
they incorporated. The image is a pen and ink illustration of Sir Issac Newton
leaning against an apple tree with a portion of a William Wordsworth poem
running around the border: “Newton…A mind forever voyaging through strange
seas of thought…alone” (Prelude, Book III, Residence at Cambridge)

Steve Jobs decided to scrap this image because he felt that Wayne’s logo was too cerebral and
not easily reproduced at small sizes.

The Rainbow Logo

In 1977, with Wayne gone from the company, Jobs turned to the Regis McKenna
Advertising Agency to produce a new, more iconic logo. After several attempts
and variatons (and a ton of money spent), the result was the most iconic of all
Apple logos. The Rainbow Apple logo.

This logo will forever be one that pops into my mind when I think of Apple…and
I don’t think I’m alone on that. This iconic logo helped make Apple a world wide
brand, and continues to be used by fans on Apple products to this day. This logo was “retired” in
1999.

The Logo. Reinvented.

The Modern look for the Apple logo has had a variety of color variations in recent
years.

The “official” design is chrome looking, but we have seen the logo in a variety of
colors on Apple’s official site, and within OS X itself. The current logo in Tiger is
blue.

It has appeared on the site as red, blue, and gray

The Apple logo has become one of the most iconic and recgonizable logos in the world, so it is
doubtful that it will ever change too drastically from it’s current look, but it’s interesting to see
how it has changed over the years, and I’m curious to see how it will evolve in time.

The Newton Crest: 1976-1976

The first Apple logo was designed in 1976 by Ronald Wayne, sometimes referred to as the third
co-founder of Apple. The logo depicts Isaac Newton sitting under a tree, an apple dangling
precipitously above his head. The phrase on the outside border reads, “Newton… A Mind
Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought … Alone.”
The Rainbow Logo: 1976-1998

Not surprisingly, the above logo only lasted a year before Steve Jobs commissioned graphic
designer Rob Janoff to come up with something, oh I don’t know, a little bit more modern.
Janoff’s eventual design would go on to become one of the most iconic and recognizable
corporate logos in history.

According to Janoff, the “bite” in the Apple logo was originally implemented so that people
would know that it represented an apple, and not a tomato. It also lent itself to a nerdy play on
words (bite/byte), a fitting reference for a tech company. Quick sidenote: Corporate design sure
was a lot simpler in the 70’s. Nowadays, companies like Pepsi spend millions of dollars on logo
re-designs that are based on complete BS and new age mumbo jumbo.
As for the rainbow stripes of the logo, Steve Jobs is rumored to have insisted on using a colorful
logo as a means to “humanize” the company. Janoff has said that there was no rhyme or reason
behind the placement of the colors themselves, noting that he wanted to have green at the top
“because that’s where the leaf was.”

The relatively simple origins of the rainbow colored Apple logo hasn’t stopped some from
reading a bit too much into what it represents. Jean-Louis Gassée, former Apple executive and
founder of BeOS, quipped about the logo:

One of the deep mysteries to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all
crossed with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn’t dream a more
appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope and anarchy.

The passion of the French knows no bounds!

The multi-colored Apple logo was in use for 22 years before it was axed by Steve Jobs less than
a year after his return to Apple in 1997. In its place was a new logo that did away with the
colorful stripes and replaced it with a more modern monochromatic look that has taken on a
variety of sizes and colors over the past few years. The overall shape of the logo, however,
remains unchanged from its original inception 33 years ago.

The Monochrome Logo: 1998 - Present

TInkering with one of the most recognizable logos in the world wasn’t done simply because
Steve Jobs is always looking to change things up. When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the
company was bleeding money, and Jobs and Co. realized that the Apple logo could be leveraged
to their advantage. That meant experimenting with larger logos to make it more prominent. If
the shape of the Apple logo was universally recognizable, why not not put it where people could
see it?

That being the case, placing a large rainbow Apple logo on top of the original Bondi Blue iMac,
for example, would have looked silly, childish, and out of place. Not exactly the direction Jobs
wanted to lead Apple in. So instead of placing a somewhat minuscule rainbow colored Apple
logo on its products, Apple began placing sizeable and Monochrome styled logos on its products
in all sorts of places: on top of the original iMac, on the side of the Powermac G3 Tower, and in
an assortment of colors on the good ole iBooks. This trend, which began in 1998, continues to
this day.

The rainbow colored logo might always be a source of nostalgia for Mac enthusiasts, but the
monochrome logo allows Apple greater flexibility when it comes to branding its products. Also,
Steve Jobs isn’t exactly the type to get wrapped up in warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia. When
Jobs returned to Apple, he needed to transform Apple’s image from that of a failing company
into one capable of churning out sleek and cutting edge products, and he needed a new logo to
match. It doesn’t appear likely that Apple will change up its logo again anytime soon, but one
thing that will undoubtedly remain is the shape of the logo itself.

Why Apple had to abandon the rainbow

The rainbow logo just wouldn’t fit on the iMac pictured to the right. Rainbow on beige?
Alright. Rainbow on metal? Not so much.