Core77 Presents Afterschool

When I was in high school and just starting to think about college, I knew I wanted to get into design, but wasn’t sure what that meant exactly. I liked making things and loved all of my art classes, but design wasn’t talked about much back then, which made it hard to learn about. And then, the iMac came out. In the shadow of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, it’s hard to remember what a big deal the iMac was, but it was a really big deal. Pretty much every computer at that point was a beige box, and then out comes Apple with this translucent, Bondi blue, space orb. The aesthetic was head turning, but it was the design of how people would use it that captured my 16-year-old attention. Plug in the keyboard and mouse, plug it into the wall, and start surfing the internet. An all-in-one, fully considered, user experience. The iMac saved Apple from bankruptcy and helped put design on the map in the late 90s. Its designers were actually featured in interviews. And those interviews ended up being my first encounter with