Writing for Macworld, Dan Moren wants Apple products to be colorful again. Apple products like the iPhone and IPad come in metallic colors like silver, gray, and gold, but they aren’t as colorful as the products of old with the six colors of the old Apple logo.
The recent chromatic identity of Apple has clearly been one of simplicity and elegance. From the featureless white room in which Jony Ive seems to give all his product spiels to the non-illuminating Apple logo on the latest notebook computers, the company’s design over the past decade and change has often seemed to treat colors as frivolous and silly. Even that six-color Apple logo, long the distinctive badge of the company, was retired in 1998; for the last 15 years or so, it’s merely been a monochromatic silhouette.
Check It Out: Apple, It’s Time to Paint With Your Six Colors
There is a reason behind anything Jonny does. Ditching the silly rainbow logo was the smartest thing ever for the sake of design and color theory and the psychological way humans respond to color. There was a time that the goofy colors were needed by Apple to distinguish themselves from “Big Blue” which was of course was really Big Beige but silly colors was always a gimmick. Today it would be laughable. Phones are covered by cases so that’s moot, and computers made to look like Playskool toys just rings of late 90’s.
Look at automobiles in sunny CA – 90% of them have NO color but are variants of grayscale from silver-grey-white-to black; and it’s not a coincidence that it’s that way compared to say – cars in the 60s and 70s. 🚗
I personally like the current neutral colors because they match with anything. If a person wants more color, cases and skins are the way to go since you can switch them on and off.