Keep it Simple: The Early Design Years of Apple

Keep

it Sim

ple

Hartmut Esslinger, Founder of frog designArnoldsche Art Publishers

Nobody can copy the genius of Steve Jobs,but like him we can strive for lifelong learning,

respect creativity as an economic and cultural powerand be courageous about fundamental change.

—Hartmut Esslinger Arn

old

sche

Art P

ub

lishe

rsArnoldsche Art Publishers

Ha

rtmu

t Esslin

ge

r

Keep it SimpleThe Early Design Years of Apple

ISBN 978-3-89790-407-1

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

KIS_cover_EN_26SEP13.pdf 1 9/26/13 12:45 PM

viiiKeep It Simple The Early Design Years of Apple

KIS_0_FM_26SEP13.indd 8 9/27/13 12:31 PM

ix

Forward

Hartmut Esslinger has changed the world of design and has done so on a global scale. From the serenity

of the Black Forest, he and his ideas have emanated from Germany and Japan all the way to the US and

now China. Hartmut Esslinger is one of the very first to have succeeded in deploying design as a strategic

component by working with product development from the outset, and not simply viewing design as

a mere extra. This was not the easy way and has indeed earned him a reputation as a confrontational

maverick; still, success has shown how right he was.

Esslinger and esslinger design, the company he founded in 1969 while still a student, received a commission

to design a new line of hi-fis and television sets for Wega, a German business that would later be taken

over by Sony. That was how Esslinger got to Tokyo. By 1971, his Wega Color 3000 had come to epitomize

the modern TV set. What is less well known, on the other hand, is that he designed a showerhead (Tribel)

that same year for Hansgrohe, a German company, and more than 15 million Tribels were produced. With

the Tribel, form followed both function and emotion.

The roll of Hartmut Esslinger’s clients is long indeed and very international, which led in 1982 to his

company being renamed frog design. He and his wife and business partner, Patricia Roller, subsequently

expanded it into a creative agency that is active worldwide. Today — even though Esslinger retired from

the company in 2006 — it employs a workforce of about 1000 in fifteen studios around the world.

Esslinger had been working with Steve Jobs since 1982 and was of paramount importance for the look

of Apple products as an external designer — as of 1983 also as Corporate Manager of Design. The start of

Forward

Hartmut Esslinger, 1988

Photo: Jim Rakete

KIS_0_FM_26SEP13.indd 9 9/27/13 12:31 PM

2Keep It Simple The Early Design Years of Apple

KIS_ch1_26SEP13.indd 2 9/27/13 1:08 PM

3 iNsanely Great

iNsanely Great

The deeper you go, the higher you fly.— The Beatles. “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide,” The White Album, 19681

When my wife and partner-for-life, Patricia, found the original Snow White design contest briefing I

received from Apple back in March of 1982 (which, oddly enough, bears the incorrect date of March 1983)

on a bookshelf in our home in Germany, she called me and insisted: “…even though you’ve already said

and written a lot about your experiences with Apple, it’s time for you to write the full story!” I thought

about it for a while, then realized Patricia was right; this was a story that needed to be told.

An old hand on the Hollywood scene once told the English copywriter, Fraser Southey, “All you need for

a story is a character, a goal and an obstacle.” The story of Steve Jobs’ quest to bring a radically new

design language to the historically desert-dry sensory experience of computer technology certainly has

all three of those elements. Beyond the intrigue of its twists and turns, the story you’re about to read

also serves as an important historical account — a bridge over the chasm that divides the reality of the

incredibly challenging process of creating one of the world’s iconic commercial design statements from

the mythology carried forth by many people who view the early Apple years through their own reality-

distortion filters. As Ernest Hemingway put it: “Everybody can sell everything to oneself.” Fortunately,

I haven’t relied on fond memories or wishful thinking for the details of the events I’ve written about

here; I’ve drawn upon a large archive of physical documents, records and images to bring you the most

accurate and complete picture possible — and no sales job.

Of course, there are many books about Steve Jobs and Apple. Professionals everywhere want to be

like Steve — or want their company to succeed like Apple — so they avidly snatch up accounts of his work,

hoping to find the magical recipe. For those readers this book is a first, because it tells the story of

frog design logo

1

KIS_ch1_26SEP13.indd 3 9/27/13 1:08 PM

KIS_ch2_26SEP13.indd 10 9/27/13 1:08 PM

11 My Way to Steve

My Way To Steve

Didn’t get to bed last night.— The Beatles. “Back in the USSR,” The White Album, 1968

My first encounter with Apple was at the ICSID World Design Congress in Helsinki in 1978, where the

company had installed a working Apple IIe system in the lobby of the Congress Hall. Actually, the term

“system” may be a bit of a stretch, but the computers were loaded with VisiCalc and a basic email

program, so people could play around with them. I liked Apple’s simple approach to technology — I was

struck by how well these rudimentary products worked and how inexpensive they were, compared to the

professional computer systems I had designed for CTM. Apple’s rainbow logo radiated fun, but the words

“apple computer” scrawled across a badge in an ugly typeface were a downer. The promotional material

for the system was nice, even though it suffered a bit from “American overload.” But, as is typical for

a startup, the product design was clunky. Semantically, the Apple IIe looked like an old typewriter without

its ribbon and roller, and the keyboard stood at a wildly non-ergonomic height above the desktop. Two

primitive 5-inch floppy disk drives made of generic sheet metal rested on top of the computer case,

capped by an off-the-shelf Japanese monitor that displayed green characters on a black background.

Of course, you have to consider what Apple was competing against at the time. The tiny field of “home

and personal computing” was occupied by the Commodore PET and the 64. There also were a variety of

self-assembled kits, which were mostly for hobbyists. Companies such as Osborne (a portable computer

within the size of a boarding case) and Altair (more “system centric”) completed the field. Except for

the Commodore 64, all home and personal computers in 1978 were ugly beyond imagination, and the

C64 suffered from a lousy display quality due to the digital signal shredding necessary for display on its

analog TV screen — drawbacks which didn’t stop the company from selling millions of the machines. The

2

Steve Jobs, 1985

Photo: Getty Images/Bloomberg

KIS_ch2_26SEP13.indd 11 9/27/13 1:08 PM


Classic Sony: Lisa study, 1982

Sony Style

KIS_ch3_26SEP13.indd 40 9/27/13 4:17 PM

41 Snow White

Classic Sony: Macintosh study, Lisa system configuration, 1982

KIS_ch3_26SEP13.indd 41 9/27/13 4:17 PM


Snow White, Americana from Macintosh to Lisa and Workstations

KIS_ch3_26SEP13.indd 44 9/27/13 4:17 PM

45 Snow White

KIS_ch3_26SEP13.indd 45 9/27/13 4:17 PM

56Keep It Simple The Early Design Years of Apple 56Keep It Simple The Early Design Years of Apple

KIS_ch3_26SEP13.indd 56 9/27/13 4:18 PM

57 Snow White57 Snow White

KIS_ch3_26SEP13.indd 57 9/27/13 4:18 PM


Bashful: MacBook 1, study, 1982

KIS_ch3_26SEP13.indd 86 9/27/13 4:18 PM

87 Snow White

Bashful: MacBook 1, study, 1982

KIS_ch3_26SEP13.indd 87 9/27/13 4:18 PM


Macintosh SE (redesign) with minimal keyboard and new mouse, 1983–1984

Photo: Dietmar Henneka

KIS_ch6_26SEP13.indd 172 9/27/13 4:41 PM

173 The Apple Tree

BabyMac, design model

Photo: Manfred Rieker, 1985

KIS_ch6_26SEP13.indd 173 9/27/13 4:42 PM


Apple Wrist and Ear Phone, study, 1983

KIS_ch6_26SEP13.indd 204 9/27/13 4:43 PM

205 The Apple Tree

Apple Standup Phone, study, 1983

KIS_ch6_26SEP13.indd 205 9/27/13 4:43 PM


History is Future

MacBook Conceptual Design Study, 1982 Snow White Design Strategy

KIS_ch7_26SEP13.indd 268 9/27/13 1:17 PM

269 A Hero’s Journey

Snow White Lives

MacBook Air, 2008, Design: Jonathan Ive & Apple Design GroupPhoto: Roman Raacke

KIS_ch7_26SEP13.indd 269 9/27/13 1:17 PM

Keep

it Sim

ple

Hartmut Esslinger, Founder of frog designArnoldsche Art Publishers

Nobody can copy the genius of Steve Jobs,but like him we can strive for lifelong learning,

respect creativity as an economic and cultural powerand be courageous about fundamental change.

—Hartmut Esslinger Arn

old

sche

Art P

ub

lishe

rsArnoldsche Art Publishers

Ha

rtmu

t Esslin

ge

r

Keep it SimpleThe Early Design Years of Apple

ISBN 978-3-89790-407-1

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

KIS_cover_EN_26SEP13.pdf 1 9/26/13 12:45 PM

Keep it Simple: The Early Design Years of Apple

Documents

Transcript of Keep it Simple: The Early Design Years of Apple