From the start, Apple has been a company focused on design to a greater extent than most tech companies: While Steve Wozniak‘s groundbreaking architecture for the Apple II gave it an advantage over the other personal computers of the day, industrial designer Jerry Mannock‘s iconic beige case designs helped it and subsequent early Apple computers bridge the gap from hacker favorite to mass-market hit. And so it wouldn’t be surprising, as Cattani Simone proposes, if Apple’s Finder icon was influenced by Picasso’s 1934 painting “Two Characters”: [text below originally written in Italian and translated by a friend of Simone’s]
Today I’ve visited the gallery … and even though I’m not a fan of this type of art, I have to admit that the works are not bad at all. But looking at those I felt there was something strange …. Do you notice anything familiar?
The icon of the Macintosh Finder seems very similar to the face of one of the characters of the work of the Spanish artist … Initially I told myself that it wasn’t possible … I’ve never heard about that and anyway someone would know the story for sure … but on the internet there seems to be no correspondence between these things … or at least … No one has mentioned it in the network….
Meanwhile, Benjamin Mosse surmises that the Finder icon was influenced by the poster for the first Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar. Thoughts? I’m sure a lot of tech industrial designers wish their work was as closely scrutinized as Apple’s.
(iCattani via Daring Fireball)
Published: Jan 5, 2011 02:22 pm