STEVE JOBS IN SILHOUETTE

The student came up the with idea when Jobs resigned, but it’s only since Jobs’ passing, that the design is getting attention.
Courtesy Jonathan Mak

Apple Logo Features Steve Jobs in Silhouette
A Hong Kong student tweaked the Apple logo as a tribute to the company’s former CEO.
Fri Oct 7, 2011 11:58 AM ET | content provided by AFP
A Hong Kong design student said on Friday he was overwhelmed and felt “unreal” after his somber logo in tribute to Apple founder Steve Jobs caused a worldwide Internet sensation.

The design, featuring Jobs’s silhouette incorporated into the bite of a white Apple logo on a black background, has gone viral on the Internet since news of his death.

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“I feel so unreal,” Jonathan Mak, a second year graphic design student at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, told AFP, after he was inundated with tens of thousands of emails and messages on his Twitter account.

Watch the Discovery Channel’s show about how Steve Jobs changed the world on Sunday, Oct. 16, at 8 pm ET/PT.

“You don’t get to 180 thousands notes without feeling slightly insane,” the 19-year-old posted on another microblogging site Tumblr Friday, referring to the messages he has received.

Mak said newspapers in the United States and Germany have contacted him about buying the copyright to use his logo and had received job offers.

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“I am flattered by the attention but I would like to focus on my study before taking on any full-time job,” said the bespectacled student, adding that he was trying to cope with his new-found fame.

“I’m quite busy now actually as I’m trying to finish a school project.”

When asked about whether he would be targeting commercial opportunities, Mak said he was considering contacting Apple on copyright issues because his design is based on Apple’s own logo.

Some merchandisers have reportedly used his logo for commemorative memorabilia for Jobs such as t-shirts and caps that are being sold on the Internet.

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“I will consider using any proceeds I make from the copyright for cancer research, as suggested by some people to me on the Internet,” he said. Jobs died at 56 of pancreatic cancer.

Mak said he first came up with the design after Jobs announced his resignation in late August, but the logo received little attention at the time.

The teenager said the Apple founder had inspired him in his design.

“He was a minimalist, which is the way I would like to emphasize in my design — fewer elements but a powerful message.”

“Steve Jobs strongly believed in his own ideas and continued with his beliefs no matter how people criticized him. He was courageous,” said Mak.