Marcin WicharyMay 16, 2023

Last week, I had a chance to visit @hypertalking’s (James’s) excellent collection of Mac-related stuff. He’s particularly interested in collecting 1990s Macs, which is the era of Apple history I don’t have a lot of personal experience with, so it was doubly exciting.

Here are some 100 photos from that visit:

Show threadMarcin WicharyMay 16, 2023

James’s work has recently gone viral! He meticulously recreated a few of Hokusai's views of Mount Fuji in the original Mac’s resolution and 1-bit colour.

I got to see them all in person! https://kottke.org/23/05/great-wave-off-kanagawa-in-all-its-1-bit-pixelized-glory

Great Wave Off Kanagawa, In All Its 1-Bit Pixelized Glory

As part of a project to reproduce all 36 of Hokusai’s views of Mount Fuji as 1-bit black & white pixel art, James Weiner dre

kottke.org
Show threadMarcin WicharyMay 16, 2023
Anyway, on to the collection. There must be thousands of rainbow Apple logos in here.
Show threadMarcin WicharyMay 16, 2023
…recessed or otherwise.
Show threadMarcin WicharyMay 16, 2023
Love that you can see a little texture on this.
Show threadMarcin WicharyMay 16, 2023
A fun (although maybe more pretentious than usual) “do” and “don’t” manual of using the Apple logo.
Show threadMarcin WicharyMay 16, 2023
If you can’t afford six Pantone colors, you can always approximate them. Love, John.
Show threadMarcin WicharyMay 16, 2023
Oh, no, not these.
Show threadMarcin WicharyMay 16, 2023
These 1970s truck and van shapes are amazing.
Show threadMarcin WicharyMay 16, 2023
What is this, a font picker.
Show threadJohn Gruber
@mwichary @alexcox I have no recollection of that 1983 Helvetica treatment. Is that real?
May 19, 2023 at 4:09amIvory for iOS
Show threadMarcin WicharyMay 19, 2023

@gruber @alexcox Letterform Archive has a better view of this doc: https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_mok_0122&targPic=lfa_mok_0122_003.jpg

I’ve also been puzzled by this. I know some of the early Lisa stuff was very Helvetica (e.g. this attached), and the date checks out, but I don’t remember the logo looking like this.

Online Archive

Virtual access to Letterform Archive’s collection of lettering, typography, and graphic design.

Show threadAndrew WattersonMay 20, 2023
@mwichary @gruber @alexcox I was also surprised by this. Apple used various flavors of Helvetica as their main branding font (logo-adjacent) in 1983, but the logo lockup for those pieces uses Motter Tektura.
Show threadJohn GruberMay 20, 2023
@andrewwatterson @mwichary @alexcox That spiral-bound one in the front looks like Univers?
Show threadAndrew WattersonMay 21, 2023
@gruber @mwichary @alexcox Oh you're absolutely right! The IIc had Apple's first keyboard printed in Univers, a choice (originally specified by Frog Design) that they kept around through the early 2000s.