From illustration to silhouette
Apple’s early identity included Ron Wayne’s illustration of Isaac Newton beneath a tree. Rob Janoff’s subsequent design replaced that scene with the familiar silhouette of an apple with a bite removed. Its rainbow-striped version became a prominent expression of the company’s identity.
Wayne’s design was complex and hand-drawn: Newton sitting under an apple tree inside a picture frame, with a ribbon banner reading “APPLE COMPUTER CO.” It was almost immediately replaced. Janoff worked for Apple’s marketing consultant, Regis McKenna, and presented Steve Jobs with several monochromatic themes for the bitten logo. Jobs liked it immediately.
Colour and recognition
The bite helped distinguish the fruit from a cherry. Colour connected the identity with the Apple II’s colour graphics. Later versions removed the rainbow treatment while preserving a closely related outline, allowing the shape to carry recognition across different surface effects.
Jobs insisted that the logo be colorized to humanize the company. The stripes were conceived to make the logo more accessible, and McKenna credits them to Tom Kamifuji, an artist who did kabuki figures in multiple colors. The colours were rearranged so that the leaf on top was green. On August 27, 1999, the year after the iMac G3, Apple officially dropped the rainbow scheme for single-colour logos nearly identical in shape. An Aqua-themed version was used from 1997 until 2003 and a glass-themed version from 2007 until 2013.
What to study
Compare the illustrated predecessor, the striped version and a single-colour rendition. Ask what information each contains and what remains recognizable when detail disappears. The comparison makes simplification concrete without assuming that fewer elements always make a better mark. It also separates the designer’s documented choices from later stories attached to an already familiar symbol.
One story holds that the bitten apple pays tribute to Alan Turing; both Janoff and Apple deny any such homage. Jobs said the company’s name came from a visit to an apple farm and seemed to him fun, spirited and not intimidating.
