| Home > Of things Mac > Of branding, sounds and logos - new Intel Inside logos and Apple history |
| Of branding, sounds and logos - new Intel Inside logos and Apple history | | Date Created: 30 Dec, 2005, 01:28 AM |
 I've been having a delighful email exchange with Dirk Spiers in the UK.
Amongst other things he has a strong interest in branding, and of course, Apple would be one company of importance to study.
His recent blog entries have looked at possible new logos for Intel, especially their new dual core chips (left).
Notice the old fashioned subscript "e" has been dropped (er, sorry about the pun) and the word "inside" de-emphasised.
Dirk discusses the possible hand in this of new marketing head, Eric Kim, following the huge success of the "Intel Inside" campaign of former marketing VP Dennis Carter 15 years ago.
Yep, laptops from the Wintel domain have been carrying those lurid collections of logos on their palmrests for a long time, prompting Mac followers to ponder how or if new Intel logos will appear in concert with new Apple products.
I can't imagine a new iBook with an Intel chip inside will have any logo literally stuck onto it, no matter how much Intel might offer.
Huh?
Well, it's no surprise that the Intel Inside marketing campaign is the ultimate in product placement. The new iBook maker, Asus, has sold over 40 million of its own laptops and that's just one brand. With all those logos.
Wikipedia reports that "Intel pays half the advertising costs for any ad that uses the "Intel Inside" logo."
And that advertisement featuring the logo and the 5-note sonic icon that accompanies it is shown every five minutes somewhere in 130 countries.
In other words, it's huge. Ugly logos on laptops, but huge. Throw in Windows Xp logos, as well as those by ATI for its graphics chips and you've become a mobile billboard.
Anathema to Mac users.
And Apple agrees. Pre-Titanium laptops included the multicoloured Apple logo on the screen's lower bezel, and for a long time, an upside down white lit logo on the screen's top cover.
(See illustration below right, from AccelerateYouMac's 1998 review of one of the G3 versions) |
The Titanium series dropped the coloured logo, replaced just with the words Powerbook G4, (very low key) and the white logo was inverted to now be the right way up when the Powerbook was open and working, when it lit up when the screen was active. Not even the words Apple or Macintosh were visible in this cleanest of designs, which carries over into the current range of Powerbooks.
So within the Mac world, there has been some anxiety as to whether Apple will be party to what other PC makers have shared with Intel: logos, and sonic icons in ads.
It won't be the first time Apple users will become anxious over potential changes to their brand.
Wired in 2003 covered some of the angst when Apple released the Panther version of OS X, which introduced a system-wide metallic finish to the OS, as well as the Apple logo on startup.
The piece's author, Cult of Mac's Leander Kahny (any news of the book, Leander?) interviewed the creator of the original multicoloured logo, Ron Janoff.
Kahney wrote:
""It freshens it up," Janoff said of the new color scheme. "It's great to take an image and keep revising it and making it better. I'm totally into it."
Janoff acknowledged an outcry might be heard from Apple purists. He noted there were complaints in 1998 when Apple's CEO Steve Jobs ordered Janoff's rainbow-striped logo to be replaced with a monochrome version on the PowerBook G3, the first Mac to get the new logo. "
More recently, Panther's introduction of more metal was not welcomed, as I recall. In fact, an online petition was organised to oppose its widespread place within the OS, calling on Apple to "cut out the brushed metal".
And Apple users' anxieties were also raised when the old familiar and comforting happy Mac logo, based on the original Mac plus, was dropped as the start up icon, in favour of the solid Apple logo. This occurred when OS 10.2 or Jaguar was introduced, possibly as a way for Apple to declare it was time to get really serious about entering the corporate sector. In any case, I've always thought OS X came of age with Jaguar, and it marked the time I spent far less time in OS 9 on my Titanium.
And so now Apple users are contemplating the imminent introduction of Intel-inside iBooks. Where would any Intel logo go? Has Steve Jobs done a deal to have the iBook's packaging featuring a new logo, perhaps the one above?
Will it be etched on the back panel as some have suggested, or inside the machine, visible only when you take the back cover off? Shades of the original Mac with its engineering team's signatures on the inside moulding.
If the iBook is released, we can also expect to see its new advertisement too, which will follow after the usual interviews with the engineering, marketing and design VPs, including Intel personnel.
All in the Moscone Centre will be waiting to see if
1. ... there will be an Intel logo featured,and where?
2. .... will the familiar Intel Inside chimes be heard, or will Apple get its own version.
These sounds by the way have deep emotional significance. When I first played with a Mac in 1989 (I used one for work when I was a Clinical Registar in a Melbourne hospital), I remember switching on the units we had and being deeply impressed that this toy-like device could produce such as "serious" startup sound. It was really quite sonorous, and professional-sounding - not toy-like at all. Remember, this was also the time of DOS, and no sounds at all from IBM-PC devices.
Plug in high quality speakers and that bong sound revealed its deep bass and room shaking qualities. On more than one occasion, when I rebooted in a lecture, i was reminded just how loud yet familiar it could be.
Windows 95 introduced its own startup sound, (by Brian Eno) but of course Microsoft could not leave well enough alone, and you also got a shutdown sound too as a bonus. These continued into Xp, with variations, and I wonder what we can expect in Vista.
I think fans of both platforms have a great attachment to these startup sounds, signifying all is well in their cyberworld, and they can prepare to play or learn or communicate.
Will Intel of its own accord drop its signature chimes, to go with the new visual logos? That's a tough ask, especially given its embededness in our media-saturated lives.
Those chimes, all $350 million dollars worth according to a report at MusicThing, were created with the design brief that they should be three seconds long and,
"tones that evoked innovation, trouble-shooting skills and the inside of a computer, while also sounding corporate and inviting".
Now that's one heck of a design brief to be achieved in three seconds! And many years later we are still hearing them, perhaps one of the most recognised three seconds ever, perhaps succeeded for fame by the opening chords of Beethoven's 9th symphony - at least for anyone who's not Gen X or Gen Y!
Whatever may happen, it adds to the build up to next month' s Macworld Keynote, which promises to be one of the most anticipated in many years. If history can be learnt from, how Apple decides to brand itself - visually and sonically - will create as much comment as the products themselves.
Something those who prefer the Windows way won't understand. |
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