{"id":749,"date":"2011-10-09T21:17:59","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T03:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sebersole.wordpress.com\/?p=749"},"modified":"2011-10-09T21:17:59","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T03:17:59","slug":"steve-jobs-typography-and-the-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/steve-jobs-typography-and-the-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Jobs, Typography and the Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Although the passing of Steve Jobs this past week was not unexpected, it still was an emotional event for Apple fans and anyone who followed technology and media. The death of Steve Jobs attracted extensive media attention with much of the coverage focusing on his contributions over the years to the development of a computer and media empire that consistently delivered more than it promised.<\/p>\n

To commemorate his passing I had my Media & Society class watch the 2005 commencement address that Steve Jobs delivered to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University. The speech is only 14 minutes in length and you can see it below. There’s much to reflect on when listening to Jobs talk about his upbringing, his abbreviated college years, the twists and turns of his professional career, and his bout with cancer.<\/p>\n

The one thing that stood out to me was the role that a class in typography, from Reed College, had on Jobs’ design of the Macintosh computer and, in many ways, the direction of Apple computer. Font selection, leading, kerning, tracking and ligatures are the concerns of a fairly obscure group of individuals, namely printers and typography geeks, yet Jobs was captivated by the ancient art of arranging letters on a page. Prior to the Apple Mac, computer type was crude and utilitarian. Function certainly won out our over form for screen fonts and printer output. But Jobs equipped the Mac with Postscript font technology and that, married with the personal laser printer, made high quality screen and print typography accessible to the masses. We take for granted font selection and high quality print output…but for that we should thank Steve Jobs and his vision for the Macintosh computer that started when he dropped in on a typography class at Reed College.<\/p>\n