Apple

 Apple Creative Service 

Creative Director 

NASDAQ (AAPL) 

Cupertino, CA 

I remember hearing Apple described as a refuge for corporate misfits and nonconformists. Looking back, my time there had the most significant and profound influence on me as a designer. Call it Kool-Aid 101 or the catchy businessism du jour, but Apple taught me an invaluable lesson in entrepreneurship. It showed me that design is not only a form of expression but also a method of action—a way to accomplish a purpose and satisfy a need. The journey itself was as important as the destination. 

Back then, anarchy seemed to be the modus operandi inside Apple. It was not the easiest place to work, but it was a place where ideas mattered more than one’s experience or position within the organization. Good ideas often prevailed over the constraints imposed by the “real world.” In a strange way, Apple was a displaced hippie commune that just happened to be a corporation in Cupertino. 

It is important to note that Apple did not actively recruit the crazies and the dreamers. They came because of what Apple represented: the belief that individuals matter and that, given the opportunity, they can—and will—change the world. That opportunity changed the way I thought about design. 

During this period, I confronted the challenge of explaining and introducing new concepts to a technophobic world. Doing so required an integrated, multidisciplinary approach and a willingness to cast aside long-held assumptions. These forms of collaboration have since become central to my design practice. 

Having helped Apple launch the Macintosh the desktop publishing and HyperCard, I became convinced that designers must take an active role in shaping the tools transforming electronic communication. If we do not design the new medium, someone less attuned to its human and cultural consequences will simply engineer it.