I saw this article in Google Reader tonight:
http://www.cultofmac.com/did-picasso-influence-the-mac-finder-icon/75608
The association itself is neat because it seems crazy to me that nobody noticed this before. But I have to put on my old-mac-user-pedant hat for a second.The article says:
But did the concept for this graphic originate in Cupertino in the 1980s, or much earlier on another continent?
The blue Mac OS logo definitely did not originate in the 1980s. I remember clearly when this logo was introduced, first in the press and then in the Mac OS startup splash screen. If memory serves, this was somewhere around 1994 or 1995 and Mac OS 7.6ish. (Incidentally, it was around the same time Mac OS started being called Mac OS. Before that, if you can believe it, it was just called “The System” or more specifically, System 7.)
If I have my facts straight, this logo came to be because Apple was beginning to authorize clone computers that would run their operating system. They needed a “Mac” logo distinct from the five-color Apple logo. Clones could carry this blue logo, but of course they couldn’t use the Apple logo itself.
The clones eventually went away, and this logo took a back seat in Mac OS X, where the newer solid color Apple logo takes prominence. But the smiley face lives on as the Finder dock icon. Wasn’t it also used in the Classic environment icon?
It sort of blows my mind that this was 15 years ago. In some ways it seems like yesterday.