The only thing more exciting than the show was a lecture with House honcho Rich Roat and master serigrapher David Dodde that was equal parts entertaining and educational. All I want in the world now is a denim vest with a "33" cobra patch on the back.
Anyway, enjoy the photos. Please forgive the blurriness; I was on the verge of design-nerd-overload. Many thanks to Eric Chimenti and Rachelle Woo Chuang for making this happen!
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It was truly a privelige to be a part of the story, and we at SSU wish First 5 San Mateo all the best in the future.
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Some branding work for our comrades at Belmont-based Summit Construction. I have to say, the crispness of small type printed in spot color always makes me smile. Also worth noting is some creative print technique for the logo gradient– we printed a solid of the base red, then screened a darker shade on top of it for the gradient. Krasivyĭ!
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As a creative, Apple had been an integral part of my career. The Macintosh (1984), the first Mac, was fondly admired but seldomly used because I simply couldn't afford it in college. Then came IIGS which was used at my first job out of college. It wasn't until grad school that I purchased my first Apple: A Macintosh Quadra 650 with whopping 250MB of memory and 256K of RAM - Take that, Quark! Then came a slew of upgrades every time Apple introduced a new model. G3 Blue & White was particularly memorable despite its obnoxious blue. The PowerBook G4 Titanium was one of my proudest purchase. It was a gleaming, drool inducing piece of work. Of course, I am currently typing away on the latest sexy beast, iMac 27".
The point is, Apple for me, has always been synonymous with Steve Jobs, even when he was exiled by his board. Apple products had his footprint and fingerprint from the very beginning, and even during his exile. Sure the product line suffered and the company floundered but that's becasue Job's supernatural awesomness was wearing off after many years.
Once he came back, he unleashed his UBER-analness to the product development process. He obsessed over every micro-manageable details. He was famous for his spit-spewing screaming at people's faces during meetings. Apple didn't start creating mega-hit wonders becuase they were so smart and cool. They did it because Jobs drove everyone batty with his obsession for every little detail. Product dev teams would work on a product for months and when they showed it to him, he'd yell at them and say "Too many $#@% buttons! Start over!"
I would've hated working with him, a tyrannical, ill-mannered ego-maniac. Then again, I would've loved the results and in the long run, my growth.
It's his obesssion for details that made things great. Without it Apple would've been just another PC or consumer electronics company. His obession weeded out mediocrity and sprouted greatness.
It was in his DNA. It was who he was.
Shortly after his retirement in August, Jobs called Google exec, Vic Gundotra. His conversation sheds light on exactly how obsessive Jobs was:
"So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I've already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow" said Steve.
"I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong and I'm going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?"
Of course, it was okay with Vic Gundotra.
]]>What was planned for a February launch of sonnysideup.com site got pushed back further and further while we crunched away on our client projects. While our own site languish in neglect, we launched numerous sites, brands, and marketing campaigns for our clients.
I'm thankful to be busy enough to neglect our own stuff but would sure love them magic fingers to give the son his shoes.
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