When you think about the branding of the most valuable company on the planet, your mind probably jumps straight to that sleek, monochromatic bitten apple. Maybe you’re old enough to remember the vibrant, six-color rainbow version that defined the nineties. But the Apple Inc first logo wasn't an apple at all.
Actually, it looked more like something you’d find in a dusty Victorian woodcut or on the label of a craft beer from a brewery that tries too hard. It was complex. It was fussy. Honestly, it was a bit of a mess.
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Ronald Wayne designed it. You might recognize that name because he’s the "third founder" of Apple, the guy who famously sold his 10% stake for $800 just two weeks after signing the partnership agreement. If he’d held on, that stake would be worth hundreds of billions today. While his financial exit is a legendary Silicon Valley blunder, his artistic contribution—that original logo—is a fascinating window into what Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak originally thought their company was all about.
The Isaac Newton obsession
The Apple Inc first logo featured a pen-and-ink drawing of Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. He’s leaning against the trunk, seemingly lost in thought, while a single, glowing fruit dangles precariously above his head.
It’s heavy-handed symbolism.
Wayne even wrapped the image in a ribbon that read "Apple Computer Co." and added a poem around the border. The text was a line from William Wordsworth: "Newton... a mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone." Jobs loved the idea of the "lone intellectual" and the "revolutionary thinker." At the time, computers were massive, scary machines owned by governments and corporations. The Steves wanted to frame their machine, the Apple I, as a tool for the individual—a spark for the next scientific revolution.
But there was a massive problem.
The drawing was incredibly detailed. It had fine lines, tiny text, and a sort of hand-etched quality that made it impossible to reproduce at small scales. If you tried to put that logo on a business card or the side of a plastic chassis, it turned into an unrecognizable black smudge. It didn't look like a tech company; it looked like a logo for a bookstore or an herbal tea brand.
Why Rob Janoff changed everything
By 1977, Apple was growing. They were preparing to launch the Apple II, which was a huge leap forward. It was the first "personal" computer that actually felt like a consumer product rather than a DIY kit for hobbyists. Steve Jobs realized that the Victorian woodcut wasn't going to cut it. It felt old. It felt slow.
He reached out to the Regis McKenna Agency and met an art director named Rob Janoff.
Janoff’s job was basically to take the Apple Inc first logo and throw it in the trash. Jobs wanted something "modern." He didn't want a scene; he wanted a symbol.
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Janoff went to the grocery store. He bought a bag of apples, sliced them up, and sat at his desk staring at them for hours. He eventually landed on the silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it.
People love to make up theories about this bite.
- Some say it’s a tribute to Alan Turing, the father of modern computing who died by eating a cyanide-laced apple. (Janoff has explicitly denied this).
- Others think it’s a pun on "byte." (Janoff said he didn't even know what a "byte" was at the time).
The real reason? Scale.
Without the bite, the logo looked like a cherry when it was printed small. The "bite" gave the shape a sense of scale, making it undeniably an apple.
Then there were the colors. Jobs insisted the logo have colors to emphasize that the Apple II could display color images, which was a massive selling point. But he didn't want just any colors. He wanted them in a specific order, even though it made the printing process way more expensive. He wanted the green at the top to represent the leaf.
The short life of the Newton logo
The Apple Inc first logo lasted less than a year.
It’s kind of funny to think about now. Apple is the king of minimalism. They removed the headphone jack. They removed the physical buttons from the iPhone. Their stores are basically glass cubes. Yet, they started with a logo that was essentially a complex illustration with a poem attached to it.
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It shows how much Jobs evolved as a designer. He went from a guy who thought a Wordsworth quote belonged on a computer to the man who believed "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
The Newton logo wasn't just bad design; it was a mismatch of identity. It represented the past—the 17th-century Enlightenment—while the company was trying to build the future.
What we can learn from the transition
- Legibility is king. If your brand mark doesn't work as a 16x16 pixel icon, you have a problem.
- Don't be too literal. You don't need to show the history of physics to sell a computer.
- Evolution is necessary. Most great companies don't get their "forever" look on the first try.
Looking at the Newton logo today
If you look at the Apple Inc first logo today, it feels like a relic from an alternate universe. You can still find it on some of the very first Apple I manuals. Collectors pay thousands for those documents, not just because the hardware is rare, but because that logo is such a weird, specific moment in time.
It represents the brief window when Apple was just three guys in a garage trying to sound smarter than they were.
Once they actually had a product that was smart, they didn't need the poem anymore. They just needed the fruit.
Final Takeaways for Brand Identity
If you're looking at the history of the Apple Inc first logo as a case study for your own projects, the lesson is clear: your first idea is probably too cluttered.
- Simplify until it breaks. Keep removing elements from your brand mark until it no longer conveys the message, then add one thing back.
- Test for scale. Print your logo at the size of a dime. If it looks like a blob, start over.
- Ignore the "meaning" traps. You don't need a deep, hidden backstory for every curve of a logo. Sometimes a bite is just there so people don't think they're looking at a tomato.
- Acknowledge your roots. Apple occasionally references its "Newton" past (like naming their early PDA the Newton), but they never let the nostalgia interfere with their modern aesthetic.
The leap from the Newton woodcut to the rainbow apple is arguably the most important pivot in the history of corporate identity. It took Apple from being a "computer company" to a "lifestyle brand" before that term even really existed.
To see the original logo in its high-resolution glory, you can visit the Computer History Museum's digital archives or check out early 1976 Apple I documentation. It serves as a permanent reminder that even the most polished brands started out a little bit messy.