The MAC LOGO

Probably the most popular logo is the Picasso-inspired Mac logo. It wasdesigned by Tom Hughes and John Casado, art directors on the Macintosh developement team. Originally, the logo for Macintosh looked completely different and was designed by the artist Jean-Michel Folon who was payed with a royalty of $1 for every Macintosh sold (overall over 30 million). But before the release of Macintosh, Steve Jobs changed his mind and had it replaced by the simple and colorful drawing of Hughes and Casado.

The "Picasso"-logo was used as welcoming message on all versions of the Mac system software until System 7.6.1, where for the first time the Mac Face logo was used instead. With the release of MacOS X 10.2 (Jaguar) the happy Mac and Mac Face logo at startup were replaced by a grey Apple on a white background.

The Apple logo

The first Apple logo was designed by Ron Wayne, co-founder of Apple Computer. It was rather a picture than a logo. It showed Sir Isaac Newton sitting beneath the famous Apple tree thinking about gravity.

It was only used for the Apple I. Steve Jobs felt that it was too intellectual and it was almost impossible to put on computers as one could only recognize the details of the d

rawing when it was large enough.

Therefore, in 1977 Jobs asked the art designer Rob Janoff to design the new Apple logo. The new logo had a simple shape of an Apple, bitten into, with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. The bite symbolized knowlegde (in the bible the apple was the fruit of the tree of knowledge) and the bite could also be pronounced "byte", a refere

nce to computer technology.

When Jean Louis Gassée was asked about his thoughts to the Apple logo he answered: "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 of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy."

In 1997, Steve Jobs decided to drop the multi-colored Apple logo and replace it by a solid-colored logo. The first Apple computers to feature the new logo were the new PowerBook G3s in 1998 (although they still featured both types of logos).

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The name "Apple Computer"

A lot of people wonder where the name "Apple Computer" came from, as it is a rather unusal name for a computer company.

Steve Jobs came up with the name in early 1976. At the time, he was often visiting and working on a small farm friends of his owned. It was a hippie commune where Steve spent a few months of the year.When he returned from one of those stays, he told Steve Wozniak about his idea. Jobs probably was working on apple plantages. Or he just wanted their startup to be in front of Atari in the phone book. Or it was a tribute to Apple Records, the music label of the Beatles.

Whatever the true origin of the name was, Woz knew instantly that they were going to be in trouble with Apple Records sooner or later. But as they were unable find a name that sounded better than Apple Computer, the name was chosen.Woz's worries turned out to be justified. Apple Computer, Inc. was sued by Apple Records over trademark violations in 1989.