Keep it Simple: The Early Years of Apple

Add to My Reading List

ARNOLDSCHE Art Publishers, Stuttgart, Germany, 2013, English, German

Nonfiction, Digital Media Design; Nonfiction, Product/Industrial Design

10.2 x 8.8 inches, 296 pages, approximately 400 color illustrations

ISBN: 9783897904071

From the Publisher. Keep it Simple introduces the success story of Apple from the viewpoint of Hartmut Esslinger, who as an external designer in close collaboration with Steve Jobs was essentially responsible for the design of Apple products. His authentic perspective dispels many a myth – a must for all Apple enthusiasts.

Keep it Simple is the authentic story of the collaboration between Steve Jobs and Hartmut Esslinger, which began in 1982. The result of this partnership between entrepreneur and designer is of historic dimensions: Steve Jobs was the first to make Strategic Design the core of Apple’s Business Strategy. By this, Apple grew from an originally technology focused company into one of the world’s most successful, global brand, and this was achieved by creating and delivering innovative and intelligent products designed for humans like you and me.

Of course, there are many books about Steve Jobs and Apple. Professionals everywhere want to be like him – or want their company to succeed like Apple – so they avidly snatch up accounts of his work, hoping to find the magical recipe. For those readers this book is a first, because it tells the story of Apple’s evolution from the inside and the beginning, when Steve was first driven by the power of design to establish it as the strategic core of Apple’s business model. This book also is for the millions of Apple users, admirers, fans, and critics who may be curious about the origins of the products and the brand they feel so deeply about.

There are plenty of myths surrounding Steve Jobs and Apple. Now – based on Hartmut Esslinger’s comprehensive archive of hundreds of sketches, images and written records – it is time to tell it like it really was. Keep it Simple describes a creative journey, which had to overcome a tremendous opposition inside and outside of Apple.

On 1 book list

Hartmut Esslinger

On list of Books by Hartmut Esslinger

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman

Love Letter to a Garden

By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025

From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Order the book.

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

Order the book.

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

Order the book.