An interesting article on Apple and branding in Wired magazine. In many respects the later versions of the Apple logo with the bite taken out provides a pun on bite/byte – whether consciously or sub-consciously. The story linking ‘the bite’ to Alan Turing sounds somewhat apocryphal, but now it’s out in the linguistic ether, it will be nonetheless real.
Whenever I reference the apple logo during teaching, I link its significance to the story of Adam and Eve. In what might be seen as an act of resistance, Eve bites from the apple of the tree of knowledge and becomes ‘knowing’. If you think of computers as a way of extending knowledge then it makes a degree of sense. It also fits in with Apple’s counter-cultural aspirations as demonstrated in their renowned ’1984′ advertisement. And whether the ‘originators’ of the Apple logo intended these connotations of meaning isn’t really an issue. The story of Eve and the apple is so iconic, so deeply embedded in Western culture that it will operate at both conscious and subconscious levels.
