The accumulated cruft of modern life means that most people’s legacies will be buried deep beneath the digital detritus of day-to-day life. The Steve Jobs Archive was launched in autumn 2022 as a repository for the life, work, writings and correspondence of the late Apple CEO.
As The Wallpaper reports, the website’s minimal interface was shaped by Work & Co, and offers up curated snapshots of Jobs’ thought processes, from speeches, interviews, writings and letters. Whereas most archives focus on the physical ephemera of a life or lives, the Steve Jobs Archive is explicitly about ideas, and how they gestate, emerge, and evolve upon contact with other ideas.
Make Something Wonderful is the archive’s first conventional publication, albeit with a twist. Taking a carefully selected number of Jobs’ speeches, interviews, and correspondence, the physical book sets them out in a uniquely immersive format. The design team behind the physical book is none other than LoveFrom, the post-Apple consultancy that Sir Jony Ive established. However, that version of the book is for Apple, Disney and Pixar employees only, making it an instant, limited-edition collectible.
That’s the bad news. The great news, is that the Archive is offering a web publication and conventional ebook to the public, for free.
For the web publication, available as of April 11, Ive and his team have taken another tack, splicing the dynamic accessibility of online design with the craft and detail of print. A ribbon of text can be zoomed into freely, a format that deploys the typographic precision that Jobs was so invested in. The online book uses the studio’s own LoveFrom Serif, combined with fullscreen images and a discrete right-hand scrollbar for chronological navigation.
The reading experience is designed to be fluid and immersive, regardless of the subject matter. It spans speeches, interviews, writings, and notes, along with candid emails from behind the scenes, whether negotiating his return to Apple, negotiating on behalf of Pixar or just offering everyday tech support.
According to the Steve Jobs Archive, the book is “a curated collection of Steve’s speeches, interviews and correspondence, Make Something Wonderful offers an unparalleled window into how one of the world’s most creative entrepreneurs approached his life and work. In the pages of this book, Steve shares his perspective on his childhood, on launching and being pushed out of Apple, on his time with Pixar and NeXT, and on his ultimate return to the company that started it all.”
In addition to the web format, a conventional eBook (not designed by LoveFrom), will be made available on Apple Books. “Featuring an introduction by Laurene Powell Jobs and edited by Leslie Berlin, this beautiful handbook is designed to inspire readers to make their own “wonderful somethings” that move the world forward.”
‘Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words’, will be available from 11 April 2023 at stevejobsarchive.com/book and Apple Books, with other platforms to be announced soon.
—
Photo Credit: Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock.com