Last Wednesday evening Leeds hosted it's second Ignite event as part of LSx2010 web festival. Ignite events challenge each speaker to deliver something thought provoking in only five minutes and twenty slides that auto-advance every fifteen seconds. Monica attended the first Ignite last year and this time we were invited to talk, so I accepted the challenge and used my 5 minutes to talk about one of my design heros: Rob Janoff, designer of the Apple logo.

Design truths revealed by the Apple logo
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The premise of my talk was that Janoff's story, and the design of Apple's multicoloured logo, reveals some design truths. Probably most of us recogonise the logo without giving it too much thought while others read so much more into the design giving rise to questions such as: "What's with the colours?"; "Why don't the colours match the rainbow?" and "What's the significance of the bite?"

I started my career working for Apple and until recently didn't know anything about how and why the brand identity was conceived or the myths and legends that have developed about hidden meaning in the design. In researching my talk I was most struck by what a top bloke Rob Janoff is in the way he enjoys the satisfaction of having created such an enduring graphic symbol without being bothered by his lack of financial reward or recognition.

Speaking of top blokes, @philkirby's review of the event can be read on The Culture Vulture.

Monica's blog post about Ignite Leeds 2009 is here.

The blog post that got me started was Ivan's interview with Rob Janoff on Creativebits.org