Macintosh 1984 Promotional Video – With Bill Gates

So I bought a big print of the famous Mac "hello" from Susan Kare's site [1]. It's very cool, she signed and numbered it. You can see the hello at 0:23 in the video.

But after I got it and stared at it for a while, I realized it's not the exact same as in the original commercials [2] (the one in the video above), but it is the same as in some old magazine ads [3] and the one they used for the iMac anniversary edition [4]. Recently, Apple updated the original design in high rez with rainbow colors in their recent brand refresh [5]. You can easily see the difference in the "h", which has a loop on one and is straight in the other.

I emailed Karen a few years ago and asked about the differences and she said she only remembers doing the one that's on her site and isn't sure where the other one came from.

I think I discovered an unknown Mac mystery!!

Here's my best guess at an Occam's Razor explanation: Susan created the original loopy hello. Later, some magazine artist was laying out the ad and decided to clean up the letters a little bit. Fast forward a decade and someone at Apple decides to use the hello for the iMac and grabs an old magazine to use as a template. Later still, Susan sets up her website and is collecting together her art and somehow ends up with the modified version, as around that time, that was the hello being advertised by Apple. Not noticing the subtle difference, she slapped it on the site without much thought. Even later, Apple decides to reintroduce the hello, but this time they did their research (or, more likely, the web exists now making it easier to find) and used the original as a template.

1. https://kareprints.com/products/hello-on-blue?_pos=2&_sid=28...

2. https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/29370-47319-000-3x2...

3. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/58/8a/9f/588a9fceb5a3b24cc582...

4. https://media.techeblog.com/images/apple-imac-g3-anniversary...

5. https://9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2021/04/Scree...