
2023 Author: Gordon Kinson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:09
If many are already familiar with the history of the creation of Apple, as well as with the main milestones of the biography of Steve Jobs, then the question of where the logo with the bitten apple came from and what it can symbolize is not known to everyone.

The story began with the first steps to create their own company of two Steves - Jobs and Wozniak. Having a good stock of knowledge, creative enthusiasm, big ambitions and a garage for a warehouse, the co-founders of Apple set about developing the first models of computers based on the MOS Technology 6502 processor.
Of course, the question of the name of the company was soon to arise, and here Jobs and Wozniak showed ingenuity. "Apple" was a coercive word, chosen solely to "overtake" Atari in the telephone directory. After successfully registering Apple, it was necessary to think about creating a logo.
First Apple logo:

And here it should be noted that Jobs and Wozniak have chosen the name for their brainchild very well. This name quite obviously gave room for the designer's imagination, which was confirmed later. The first of the hired artists, without thinking twice, combined an apple and progress in his mind and got Newton out. Thus, Jobs and Wozniak got their first logo, which, to tell the truth, turned out to be cumbersome and slightly inconsistent with the company's activities. And although through the efforts of the designer, the apple in the logo began to be associated with insight, progress and scientific achievements, the execution was lame, therefore he was not destined to accompany the company for a long time.
Apple made a second visit to Rob Yanov of the advertising agency Regis McKenna. The designer later recalled that the work began with a meeting with Jobs, who brought the artist an Apple II, apparently for greater inspiration. After the conversation, Yanov went to the nearest store, bought a whole bag of apples and brought them home and began experimenting with the form. The designer cut the fruit into slices, in half, lengthwise and across, trying to find the correct proportions, but the solution turned out to be much easier - and this is how the bitten apple appeared on the Apple logo.

However, there is a version that the designer did not bite the apple, but simply had to draw it as such, because the whole fruit came out like a tomato. It is also said that a piece was taken from the fruit due to the consonance of the words bite (bite) and byte (byte).

Initially, the image of the apple was monochrome, but just at that time preparing for the release of the Apple II with a color display, Jobs decided that the logo should also be in color. Yanov hastily painted the image and it existed for a long 23 years in this form. By the way, the boss of the advertising agency tried to dissuade the Apple CEO from using color printing, citing high costs for printing services, but Jobs insisted on his own. Only in 1998 did the image of the apple become monochrome again.

Evil tongues claimed that the logo was a variation of the flag of sexual minorities, but this is not the case. Apple's colored apple appeared a year earlier than designer Gil Baker's rainbow flag.

In addition, there were several more options for interpreting the fruit symbol. First, in the Middle Ages, alchemists used the graphic image of an apple as a symbol of knowledge. The legend about the first computer sold by Jobs and Wozniak for $ 666.66 curiously echoes this non-trivial interpretation. Secondly, the apple is the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, which according to the Old Testament texts, Adam and Eve tasted.
The header of our site from 2011 to 2014:

Thirdly, a famous scientist, creator of the theory of artificial intelligence, Alan Turing, died after biting a fruit with cyanide.
See also:
- "Picasso style" logos Mac 1984 onwards was inspired by Henri Matisse.
- How the Samsung logo appeared (humor).
- Irina Blok on how the Android logo - the green robot - was created.