Prompt #10: Recognizing the Truth

Guozhuoyan Zhang


One of the most famous rumors in computer science field is that the logo of Apple Inc. is referred to as a tribute to Alan Turing.

Alan Turing was an outstanding British computer scientist in 20 century. He was the founding fathers of computer science and artificial intelligence. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron claimed that Alan Turing was a remarkable man who played a key role in saving this country in World War Two by cracking the German Enigma code.

Turing was also a very famous homosexual. And he was accused for homosexual and obscene acts in 1952. He was convicted by the UK government without arguing and decided to have chemical castration instead of going to the prison. In 1954, he was lying dead on his bed. And an apple with a bite was founded upon the bed's head. The cause of death was cyanide poisoning of the apple. UK government judged it as committing suicide.

While Stephen John Fry who is a famous presenter in British was asking the issues that Turing’s death has inspired Apple’s famous once-bitten l
ogo to Steve Jobs, Jobs said: “God we wish it were. It's just a coincidence.” The designer Rob Janoff and APPLE are all repudiated that Turing’s death does not have influence on the design of the logo.

In 1977, Rob Janoff was taking responsibility for designing APPLE’s logo without any payments. After manufacturing the first prototype of Apple II, Jobs and his team decided to abandon the old APPLE logo which was a complicated Isaac Newton pattern. Jobs wanted a logo design to be distinct and abstract.

In order to look for the inspiration, Rob Janoff bought a huge amount of apples and cut them into pieces. He was staring at apple’s cross section for a long time and inevitably had a bite on it. Finally a monochromatic and complanate Apple with a bite came out to his logo design.

Jobs was very happy to see this design but he thought it could be more colorful even it might not save printing cost. Jobs was decisive and he thought the color was the key to give humanization to the company.

Rob Janoff has tried every kind of color design for the logo, and finally he was inspired by a piece of triangular prism. He painted the logo with the colorful color which was scattered by the prism. And Steve Jobs accepted his design.

citation:

http://futurismnews.tumblr.com/post/72319648696/know-your-scientist-alan-turing-alan-turing-a
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/dd/ec/18/ddec1832fb3e67a0ac2e2e098d97a668.jpg
http://cdn-1.famouslogos.us/images/apple-logo.jpg

"Logos that became legends: Icons from the world of advertising". The Independent (UK). 4 January 2008. Archived from the original on 3 October 2009. Retrieved 14 September 2009.
"Interview with Rob Janoff, designer of the Apple logo". creativebits. Retrieved 14 September 2009.
"Turing and the Apple logo". 25 July 2015. Retrieved 25 December 2015.
"Science & Environment – Alan Turing: Separating the man and the myth". BBC. Retrieved 23 June 2012.