Why Apple Stopped Using The Rainbow Logo

2023 Author: Gordon Kinson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-26 08:36

They thought of "biting" the apple a long time ago, it was possible to highlight it only decades later, and a number of moral and aesthetic issues of the use of the brand name were solved only at the very turn of the century. Whims of top managers, mistakes of marketers, coincidences - the reasons for the possible redesign of the logo of the Cupertin corporation in the past years were pretty.

Objectively - Apple has resorted to changing the appearance of the logo a few times, but thought about it a lot more often. The original version, sample of 1977, looked as grand and chic as what it adorned, one of the first computers smaller than a sleeping headset, plus a personal one.

The first Apple logo

The non-standard order of colors of the "rainbow" pattern, glossy and voluminous plastic - for the youth of that era, with not blinked eyes, it resembled an outlandish pebble thrown by the abyss onto the sea shore. Of course, many wanted to have this, and the fact that only a few could afford the Macintosh Classic 2 only exacerbated the craving for the company's products - and Apple was not yet a brand.

It also did not have a solid capitalization, in connection with which designer Rob Janoff developed a simplified version of the logo - to reduce costs. The printing of a type-setting color trademark, taking into account the capabilities of the technologies of those years, cost a pretty penny, monochrome, black or beige versions would be much cheaper. Apple's management, represented by Michael Scott, jokingly called its logo "the most expensive in the world" and this fit into the overall philosophy of the brand now - to create the most innovative, non-trivial. Therefore, they did not abandon the expensive multi-colored logo, deciding not to skimp on the image.

You cannot live forever with revolutionary ideas, having reaped the well-deserved fruits of the first successes, the Cupertinians faced the need for reorganization. Apple began to gravitate towards mass production, a solid company grew from a daring startup, the range expanded - a frivolous rainbow pattern began to resemble a mockery. And from the textured beige plastic of the cases, they switched to the matte black material. It has become costly and simply stupid to stamp cast badges with both light and dark stripes separating the leaf from the apple. Smooth, austere, white logo, design timeless and timeless, for centuries - when it became possible to use the backlight of a laptop screen to indicate a brand name, all doubts about the correctness of this decision have sunk into oblivion.

But there were a lot of other reasons for the headaches of both designers and marketers - the latter were thrown to the forefront of the intensified competition. Selling the PowerBook, which is far from the cheapest gadget on the market, can only be sold to someone who can be charmed, but not discouraged. And this is exactly what happened - the visual discomfort from the fact that when the lid was open, the logo turned its "face" in the other direction, forcing the user to turn the laptop back and forth in bewilderment. By today's standards, the problem is far-fetched - I sit with my head buried in the screen, so let those around me clearly see what gadget I am using. And they envy. But then this philosophy still had to be “invented”, comprehended and conveyed to the broad masses, so for some time, as an experiment, the logo was put upside down.

See also:

• The golden Apple logo was placed inside an apple seed.
• Logo stories from Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, Xerox, IBM, Canon, Motorola.
• Why is the Apple logo a bitten apple?
• How to insert the Apple logo () into text when typing on iPhone or iPad.
• Why does the Command key on Mac have the "⌘" logo instead of ""?
• Irina Blok on how the Android logo - the green robot - was created.
• The colors for iOS 7 are taken from the Apple logo.