The Lombard Ad: words in motion
The launch of the Macintosh PowerBook G3 “Lombard” in 1999 marks a new stylistic direction for Apple television ads and animated movies.
The use of typography is a mainstay of Apple which has used it since the early Eighties to market products and most of all its brand. The ad for the Lombard PowerBook (also known as “Bronze Keyboard”) takes the use of typgraphy even further marrying the images of the laptop witha series of words in many languages (actually the same word and/or concept) alternating and speeding towards the viewer.
This style will be later used not only in promoting the follow-up, the PowerBook Pismo, but will also be part of all the intros to Apple’s operating systems.
In the 1999 ad “slim” and “slank” were Apple’s key words, still set in Apple Garamond as would the similar Mac OS 9 intro.
The last of the “classic” Mac OS also started the “Welcome” ritual which has been used (so far) in all of the Mac OS X intros since 2001 although set in the Lucida Sans and from 10.4 with an added 3D effect.
The little Quadra
The Macintosh Quadra 605 was the smallest and lowest-model from the high profile professional lineup when Apple still used 68k CPUs from Motorola.
Unlike the much bigger 700, 800 and 900 models, the 605 was offered in a horizontal slim “pizzabox” case, which closely resembled those of the LC line.
While the innards of the 605 were indeed shared with that of the Performa/LC 475 -featuring a 68040 and a floppy drive- on the other hand the design of the case was unique, a fact that many books and websites overlook, incorrectly reporting them as identical.
The design of the Quadra 605 is much rounder and stylish and looks like a slimmed down version of the Quadra/LC/Performa 630. Gone is the front hoof of the LCs and the 605 lies flat, not inclined, on the surface, sporting four cute “feet” similar to those that adorn the base of the 630, 800/840 and 7×00 models.
The 605 can be seen as the missing link between the LCs and the 630: thanks to its small width and a clean front panel without a second slot for the optical unit, it has a very appealing design, which is minimal and elegant at the same time.
Image taken from Wikipedia
Meet the Apple 32 SuperMicros
In the original press release from January 1984 one could read that the
Macintosh, along with three powerful new Lisa 2 computers, forms the basis of the Apple 32 SuperMicro family of computers. All systems in the family run Macintosh software.
and that
“We believe that Lisa Technology represents the future direction of all personal computers,” said Steven P. Jobs, Chairman of the Board of Apple. “Macintosh makes this technology available for the first time to a broad audience–at a price and size unavailable from any other manufacturer. By virtue of the large amount of software written for them, the Apple II and the IBM PC became the personal-computer industry’s first two standards. We expect Macintosh to become the third industry standard.”
This was actually a marketing attempt Apple made to capitalize on the distinction between the old 8 and 16 bit and the newer and more powerful 32 bit microcomputers and at the same time a way to present the Mac and the Lisa together to help a bit with the (poor) sales of its’ first computer with a GUI.
The “Apple 32 SuperMicros” monicker was actually used internally at Apple since November 1983 and than used in some of the promotional material the following year, grouping the Mac with three Lisa configurations (without an external hard drive, and with a 5 MB or 10 MB ProFile drive).
The brochure scans are taken from ballistikcoffeeboy ‘s photostream on Flickr.
The people behind the Macintosh
“The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay. I can’t spend enough time here, unfortunately, because I have other responsibilities. But every spare moment I have, I dash back because this is the most fun place in the world.
This is the neatest group of people I’ve ever worked with. They’re all exceptionally bright, but more importantly they share a quality about the way they look at life, which is that the journey is the reward. They really want to see this product out in the world. It’s more important than their personal lives right now.
The Apple II had a magical feel about it. You couldn’t quantify it, but you could tell. The Macintosh is the second thing in my life that’s ever felt that way. Opportunities like this don’t come along very often. You know somehow that it’s the start of something great. So everyone wants it to be perfect and works really hard on it. Everyone feels a personal responsibility for the product.
The Macintosh is the future of Apple Computer. And it’s being done by a bunch of people who are incredibly talented but who in most organizations would be working three levels below the impact of the decisions they’re making in the organization. It’s one of those things that you know won’t last forever. The group might stay together maybe for one more iteration of the product, and then they’ll go their separate ways. For a very special moment, all of us have come together to make this new product. We feel this may be the best thing we’ll ever do with our lives.”
Steve Jobs in 1984 in the first issue of Macworld
