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"Picasso" Macintosh Logo Poster

August 22, 2004

I was lucky enough to come across a vintage Macintosh "Picasso" poster at RedLightRunner a couple of weeks back, which I now have framed and happily adorning the wall of my basement computer room. This is one of two vintage Apple posters that I consider to be extraordinary finds, the other being a poster of the transparent Macintosh illustration from the original Macintosh sales brochure (the only one I've seen went on eBay for $300 about 4 months ago).

The "Picasso logo," created by Tom Hughes and John Casado, Apple saw as the embodiment of what the Mactintosh offered consumers: a vision of style, subtlety, and frendliness that was a marked departure from any other computing experience available to users at the time. Apple, unlike any of its peers, felt that the users' first impression of the machine, which would be formed as he or she eagerly opened up the box and began to look inside, was a critical moment. An imprinting. As such, great care and thought was put into the arrangement and design of the packages within—logo placement, use of color, shape, texture, orientation, etc. The result, the overall packaging of the Macintosh [PDF] really was a collective work of art. This aspect of the user experience is more widely appreciated by manufacturers today, but Apple is still unmatched when it comes to truly delviering on this front, and the fact that they "got it" so long ago—20 years now, is very telling.

The logo for another another of my sites, iPod Hacks, was fully inspired by the Picasso logo.

Posted by blakespot at August 22, 2004 11:33 AM | TrackBack
Comments

I too, love the Picasso logo. In fact, I recently acquired a neon sign of the logo from a guy on eBay. One of these days, I'll get it hung in a proper location in the house. I'd love to get one of those posters, but they are hard to find these days. For now, I have a large Apple logo on white above my desk. It was printed by Apple Canada, and I've never seen another like it.

Posted by: James at August 30, 2004 7:49 PM

I recently acquired a neon sign of the logo from a guy on eBay. One of these days, I'll get it hung in a proper location in the house. I'd love to get one of those posters, but they are hard to find these days. For now, I have a large Apple logo on white above my desk. It was printed by Apple Canada, and I've never seen another like it.

Posted by: Darren at January 10, 2005 10:53 PM

I have an old apple poster (silk screen i believe) with a guy on a bicycle and a similar looking mac trailing behind the bike. Any ideas on what it's worth?

Posted by: steve at August 8, 2007 1:09 AM

I have one of the Picasso posters that I got from the computer store I worked at when the Mac first came out. It's been backed, mounted, and framed since 1984 and has always been one of those items that some people "get" when they see it.

Posted by: Chris at December 12, 2007 2:03 AM
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