Scanning Around With Gene: The Apple Brand You May Not Recognize

Gene Gable

Last week I was interviewed on Inside Mac Radio and asked to comment on Apple being named the “Most Admired Brand in America” by Fortune Magazine. This year Apple took top honors for the first time, beating out Berkshire Hathaway (no. 2), GE (3), FedEx (7) and other popular brands.
Of course, a lot of things go into building a successful brand, and Apple has done many of them right, and a few of them extraordinarily right. Clearly brand image is closely related to graphic style, which Apple has in abundance.
But if graphic style and a cool logo were all that goes into brand admiration, then how do you explain Berkshire Hathaway at number two? I doubt very many people could tell you what Berkshire Hathaway’s logo looks like. Or Goldman Sachs (no. 10 on the list).
But for Apple, graphic style is certainly a big part of image and reputation. It seems like it always has been, even back when the logo was rainbow colored. Most of us just assume that Steve and Steve appreciated quality graphic design right from the start.
But if you go back far enough in any graphic designer’s portfolio, you’re bound to find things that might be considered a bit amateurish, if not downright bad. Go back far enough with Apple, and the same applies.
Figure 1. A very early 1976 advertisement for the Apple I computer along with the original Apple logo.

The early material out of Apple looks much like the computers did in those days: homemade. The first Apple logo pictures Sir Isaac Newton sitting under a tree along with a quote from Wordsworth: “Newton… ‘A Mind Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought … Alone.'” It was designed by Ronald Wayne, one of the three original partners (along with Jobs and Wozniack) in Apple Computer.
Figure 2. Original cover of the operation manual, 1976, for the Apple I computer. Two hundred Apple I computers were manufactured and sold for $666.66. All but twenty-five of them sold in the first 10 months.

Figure 3. Close-up of the first Apple logo, designed by Ronald Wayne, 1976.

Wayne, who owned 10 percent of Apple’s stock, bailed out of the company after only two weeks, selling his stock back for a one-time payment of $800. Nearly all of the original 200 Apple computers were sold through The Byte Shop, a computer store in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Figure 4. The warranty page in the original Apple manual. The display type and border look to be made from dry-transfer type.

Next up for the new company was a trip to the first West Coast Computer Faire in April 1977 for the introduction of the Apple II. Armed with a new partner and some much-needed cash, the company scrambled to make a good impression at the show. Jobs particularly felt that the company logo was a deterrent to sales and wanted something new.
In early 1977 Wozniack and Jobs were introduced to the Regis McKenna ad agency, eventually hiring them to help with the April rollout. Apparently, after the first meeting with Jobs and Wozniack, the head of the agency at the time said he wanted nothing to do with these “kids” but agreed to let a young account executive named Bill Kelley take the account.
Figure 5. By the time the Apple II rolled out at the first West Coast Computer Faire in 1977, Apple had hired a professional agency to design collateral, including this first brochure.

Figure 6. The first ad for the Apple II introduced the world to a more sophisticated Apple style, even if the gender roles seem rather anti-Apple by today’s standards.

Among other things, Regis McKenna designed a new logo for Apple, which Jobs wanted to be colorful: the Apple II was one of the first computers to support color graphics. A designer at the agency, Rob Janoff, sketched out the first rainbow-colored apple.
Figure 7. The rainbow Apple logo after Steve’s input.

According to Kelley, Janoff originally wanted small lines between the color bars so it would be easier to reproduce on presses with poor registration, but Jobs vetoed that idea. And Jobs ended up specifying several of the colors.
Figure 8. Yes, that’s former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan appearing in an early Apple advertisement.

The Apple rollout at the West Coast Computer Faire was a big hit, the rainbow logo stuck for many years, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Figure 9. By the time the Macintosh was released in 1984, the Apple graphic style was firmly in place.

It’s hard to know if Apple would have made it to the top of Fortune’s most-admired list if it were still using that original Isaac Newton Logo. One thing is for sure, it wouldn’t look very good on an iPod start-up screen.