To say that Steve Jobs was special would be an understatement. He wasn’t like the others, and that’s why he succeeded. However, throughout his life, there are moments that one would call curious, to say the least. One of those moments is what we’re going to talk about today. Steve he needed a logo for the company he founded when he was fired from Apple. He paid him $100,000. The truth is that as an investment it leaves something to be desired.
When John Sculley forced Steve out of the company he founded, he created NeXT, a company that might well have competed with Apple, but failed at first. His most famous computer was this cube for which Steve bought molds for some $650,000. because otherwise the corners would not have exactly 90 degrees. In general, it didn’t sell much, but its operating system was very good, so much so that Apple decided to buy the company to keep it, and with it, Steve became part of the company again from his life.
“The e is the mnemonic factor”
Back to the NeXT logo. $100,000. It may seem like a lot, but it’s by no means the most expensive logo ever. That of the BBC cost 1.8 million dollars, and that of BP a crushing 210 million. If we compare what Jobs paid at the time for his with these two -and especially with the second-, It almost looks like it came out cheap. It’s still a lot of money.
The designer they hired for the occasion was Paul Rand. He previously managed Esquire and Apparel Arts. He is at the origin of logos as famous as those of Ford, IBM or ABC. He was a real professional. For this reason, when NeXT hired him to design his logo, he delivered a 100-page book in which he explained, step by step, the entire creative process that led to its final design
“Ideally, a logo would explain or suggest the company it symbolizes, but that’s rarely possible or even necessary. The IBM symbol, for example, does not suggest anything about computers except what the viewer reads on it. Dashes are now associated with computers because the initials of a major computer company have dashes in them. The same goes for the ABC symbol, which does not suggest television. The mnemonic factors of the two logos are graphic devices: stripes and circles. In this example, the e is the mnemonic factor.
In interviewSteve Jobs explained that:
I asked him if he had any options and he replied, “No, I solve the problem for you and you pay me”. You don’t have to use the solution. If you want options, go talk to other people.'”
It was a revolutionary logo. At that time, this style of multiple colors, different letters or whatever was not very popular. Some say it was the forerunner of Google. That might be overestimating him a bit, but it would be foolhardy to deny that he doesn’t at least have a little air. I would say that today with the minimalism that reigns in the corporate world, it would not have triumphed, and at this stage of the game it is possible that they have modernized it, but the work behind is noticeable.
I personally believe that It’s too subjective a world enough to be able to determine with certainty who is right. On the one hand, we have those who think it wouldn’t have lasted the time, and on the other, those who consider it a masterpiece.
Not so much and not so little, I would say. Rand’s experience is undeniable, but there have been logos of him that received a much more unanimous positive review. Is it a masterpiece? I don’t know. I have no criteria for determining something like that. What do you think?
In Applesphere | This is how Steve Jobs introduced himself in the new NeXT using his own voice
