Keep it Simple: The Early Design Years of Apple

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Hartmut Esslinger
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
Nobody can copy the genius of Steve Jobs,
but like him we can strive for lifelong learning,
respect creativity as an economic and cultural power
and be courageous about fundamental change.
The Early Design Years of Apple
Keep it Simple
C
Keep it Simple
—Hartmut Esslinger
Arnoldsche Art Publishers
Arnoldsche Art Publishers
ISBN 978-3-89790-407-1
Hartmut Esslinger, Founder of frog design
Arnoldsche Art Publishers
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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
Hartmut Esslinger, 1988
the company in 2006 — it employs a workforce of about 1000 in fifteen studios around the world.
Photo: Jim Rakete
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
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iNsanely Great
The deeper you go, the higher you fly.
— The Beatles. “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide,” The White Album, 1968 1
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 realitydistortion 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.
frog design logo
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
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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
Steve Jobs, 1985
the Commodore 64, all home and personal computers in 1978 were ugly beyond imagination, and the
Photo: Getty Images/Bloomberg
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
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My Way to Steve
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Sony Style
Classic Sony:
Lisa study, 1982
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Classic Sony:
Macintosh study,
Lisa system
configuration, 1982
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Snow White
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Snow White, Americana from Macintosh to Lisa and Workstations
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Snow White
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Snow White
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Bashful: MacBook 1, study,
1982
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Bashful: MacBook 1, study,
1982
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Snow White
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Macintosh SE (redesign) with
minimal keyboard and new mouse,
1983–1984
Photo: Dietmar Henneka
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BabyMac, design model
Photo: Manfred Rieker,
1985
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The Apple Tree
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Apple Wrist and
Ear Phone, study, 1983
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Apple Standup Phone,
study, 1983
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The Apple Tree
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History is Future
MacBook Conceptual Design Study, 1982 Snow White Design Strategy
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Snow White Lives
MacBook Air, 2008, Design: Jonathan Ive & Apple Design Group
Photo: Roman Raacke
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A Hero’s Journey
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KIS_cover_EN_26SEP13.pdf
1
9/26/13
12:45 PM
Hartmut Esslinger
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
Nobody can copy the genius of Steve Jobs,
but like him we can strive for lifelong learning,
respect creativity as an economic and cultural power
and be courageous about fundamental change.
The Early Design Years of Apple
Keep it Simple
C
Keep it Simple
—Hartmut Esslinger
Arnoldsche Art Publishers
Arnoldsche Art Publishers
ISBN 978-3-89790-407-1
Hartmut Esslinger, Founder of frog design
Arnoldsche Art Publishers