Great look back at the style of Apple packaging in the early ’90s by Christopher Phin over at Macworld.
For a child of the ’80s like me, that style of photography—moody, low-lit, with shafts of light picking out form and texture—is still desperately exciting. And even as a kid, I was excited about the idea of working, of business, of being productive, so the kind of language and lifestyle you see in the pictures was terribly beguiling.
Indeed. Like a haircut, you can tell what era you’re in from the packaging. But Christopher makes an interesting note: all the work done to market the MessagePad on the packaging may have been for naught if they were hidden behind a sales counter.