Monday, September 22, 2014

Into Antiquity ...


This past weekend I explored a new gallery at the 
Indianapolis Museum of Art, 
one showing a large part of the museum's 
growing collection of decorative and industrial design. 
A lot of the items I've been familiar with since college, 
such as the work of Charles and Ray Eames; 
their work transformed our lives in ways we cannot 
imagine until we have it pointed out to us.
There are examples of beautifully made silverware,
twinkling chandeliers, clever lighting,
wonderful furniture, and a Dyson vacuum cleaner
to keep it all tidy. 

And then there was this, 
the 1985 Macintosh Plus computer.
Using elements from Pagemaker -- bullets, borders, 
Dingbats, lines and textures, I used the computer 
to design display ads for a local agency.
The bosses I had at that agency were evil cusses,
but I loved their Macs. Still do.
It was the first computer I'd ever used. Period.
The user-friendly Mac was a revelation to me. 
It felt odd to see my old friend on show 
in a Plexiglas case like some 
archaeological curiosity, but I guess it is.  



2 comments:

paul said...

Had one of the first 128K models. And how proud we were when we upgraded to a "FAT Mac" (256K of RAM)... Going down memory lane.

William Kendall said...

It's strange to think of that as an antiquity!