The passing of Steve Jobs has left me a bit more sad than I would have expected. But what I realized earlier today is that, where I am in life, has in large part to due with what Steve Jobs did with his life.
Way back in my college years, around the Fall of 1992, I was a student at the University of Akron and my major was graphic design. I really enjoyed the conceptual and thought driven process of design, but I most certainly didn't like the process of 'doing' graphic design. Everything had to be done by hand: paper, pencils, markers, spec'ing type, etc. It was slow, messy, inaccurate, and the finished product never looked that great no matter how wonderful an idea or design was. Just look at any printed piece from 15 years ago or more. The end product just looked like crap! And so, I had begun to search for a different college major. That is, until, the Macintosh computers rolled into the classrooms that Spring. The Mac changed everything for me. And from that point it changed my life and the path I would take in it. My experience of designing on the Mac convinced me to remain a graphic design major.
So while there are several people who had a strong influence on where I've ended up today, this story was really about how one person's vision to change the world, changed mine.
2 comments:
Very nice Scott. My first experience with a computer came in 1986 in second grade on a green screen Mac and then the next experience I had was in the Mac lab in high school. I always gravitated toward that machine. Windows did absolutely nothing for me. I was always looked at funny by people when carrying around an Apple laptop in high school. In 1997 that was a very odd occurrence. I identified with the "Think Different" tagline. I was voted "most artistic" and "dares to be different" my senior year. I guess I took that tagline to heart in a major way. Apple has always been a brand near and dear to my heart for the past 25 years. I think I subconsciously figured that since creatives generally used Mac products and I was always most comfortable in a creative environment that graphic design was just the natural choice for me. I think Steve Jobs made it socially acceptable to be creative and to think different. So in a way I guess he changed my life too.
He did lead the way on a lot of the things we believe are important....And why we make the connection.
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