Update: 'Designed by Apple in California' is now live and available for purchase via apple.com (opens in new tab).
Apple has just announced a new book, titled 'Designed by Apple in California', that highlights 20 years of Apple product design, all in memory of their late co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs.
"The idea of genuinely trying to make something great for humanity was Steve's motivation from the beginning, and it remains both our ideal and our goal as Apple looks to the future," said Jony Ive, Apple's chief design officer. "This archive is intended to be a gentle gathering of many of the products the team has designed over the years. We hope it brings some understanding to how and why they exist, while serving as a resource for students of all design disciplines."
Photographed by Andrew Zuckerman, the book contains 450 pages covering process and final product for everything from the 1998 iMac to the 2015 Apple Pencil.
While this is a design book, it is not about the design team, the creative process or product development. It is an objective representation of our work that, ironically, describes who we are. It describes how we work, our values, our preoccupations and our goals. We have always hoped to be defined by what we do rather than by what we say.We strive, with varying degrees of success, to define objects that appear effortless. Objects that appear so simple, coherent and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative.
I'm a sucker for product books. I have every Art of Star Wars book Lucas et. al ever put out (except for the second two prequels — fool me once!), a half-dozen Lego visual encyclopedias, and all the Marvel Universe and DC Who's Who I could stuff into my library. Will Apple doing it themselves rather than letting or licensing it out to a third party result in a better collection or simply a more tightly controlled one? I don't know, but I'm looking forward to finding out.
Available starting tomorrow in two sizes, small for $199 and large (plus!) for $299 from Apple.com in Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the UK and the US, and select Apple Stores, including Apple SoHo, Apple Fifth Avenue, Apple Upper East Side, Apple Williamsburg and Apple World Trade Center in New York; Apple The Grove in Los Angeles and Apple Third Street in Santa Monica; Apple North Michigan Avenue and Apple Lincoln Road in Chicago; Apple Northpark in Dallas; Apple Union Square in San Francisco; Apple Palo Alto and Apple Infinite Loop in Cupertino.
No Canada, alas.
