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The story behind the first Apple logo

Manzana has one of the most popular logos in the tech world. The bitten apple is an icon of the company led by Tim Cook. However, the image of this company was not always like this.

The first logo had the image of Isaac Newton and was designed, in 1976, by Ronald Wayne, one of the founding partners of Apple, along with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. In the image, which was used for barely a year, was Newton next to the tree with the apple, the name of the company and a phrase which said: “a mind always traveling through the strange seas of thought”.

“I knew at the time I wasn’t making a logo for the 20th century, it was a 19th century logo, but it was fun. Everything we did at the beginning was for fun”, said the author of the logo in an interview published by Vice in 2017.

He said that back then he felt like he was standing in the shadow of giants, alluding to Jobs and Wozniak, who were 20 years his junior.

“That’s how I made this pen and ink sketch. He was trying to capture Newton and the apple, suddenly a great idea is born. He was essentially an analyst of the natural sciences. He delved into optics and gravity. He built a text on explaining mechanics and mathematics, why cannonballs behave the way they do, etc. The direct correlation is Newton and the apple trigger the idea. Woz and Jobs were participants in a hobbyist group that was downsizing business computers to personal computers. And Woz focused on an ultra-simple circuit design. Jobs insisted on the word apple and I made the connection with Newton’s appleWayne explained.

The design sought to capture the essence of science, that is why he thought of Newton, as a relevant scientist of the matter. He also linked it directly to the apple that was at the center of the ideas. The idea was brilliant and fun, but after a year they decided to completely renew the image and it was replaced by bitten fruit. Not only did Newton leave Apple’s image, but also the creator of that logo.

In fact, Wayne was only with the company for a few weeks. When he left, he sold his 10% stake in the company for $800. Later, he signed a document where he waived the right to make any subsequent economic claim. If he had kept his stake in Apple today, he would have a few billion dollars to his credit.

How the current logo was arrived at

In 1977, the graphic designer Rob Janoff was in charge of creating the new company logo. Thus the bitten apple was born. It was decided that it should have a bite so it would not be mistaken for a cherry or tomato.

There is another theory that says that it was a metaphor to illustrate the concept of “eating the apple of knowledge”. It is also believed to be a tribute to computer genius Alan Turing, who committed suicide by biting into an apple poisoned with cyanide. However, this version was denied on several occasions.

On the other hand, the colors of the logo were to indicate that the Apple II computers had color screens. In 1998, when the iMac was released, the logo was no longer displayed in its multicolored version. It was the beginning of the black silhouette that persisted for years and then changed to a pearly gray.

The story behind the first Apple logo

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