Shut your eyes for a moment and imagine that Apple has just appointed a new creative director: Kanye West.
How did that feel? It's an important experiment because, just last night, Kanye took to Twitter to announce that he is the successor to Steve Jobs.
No, not at Apple. Instead, he tweeted that he is creating a company called Donda (his late mother's name) that "will pick up where Steve Jobs left off."
His precise tweet--one of many--read: "We can collectively effect the world trough (sic) design. We need to pick up where steve jobs left off." (A brief suggestion: Perhaps Kanye might reconsider naming his company "World Trough Design." Just a thought.)
You might think this is the mere boastfulness of a large-ego'd rapper. You might be right. For Kanye also tweeted that "DONDA will be comprised of over 22 divisions with a goal to make products and experiences that people want and can afford..."
Might its first product be cheap, 7" iPad, um, killer? Kanye's ambitions seem not to be as mundane as that. For he also tweeted: "We need scientist and top world designers to directly affect governments."
You might think that he's merely being a little, well, Kanye. But he insists: "I am assembling a team of architects, graphic designers, directors musicians, producers, AnRs, writers, publicist, social media experts..."
Yes, we certainly need those AnRs to directly affect governments. However, with Jobsian overtones, West said he wants to "marry our wants and needs" -- presumably in a civil ceremony.
You know he's serious when he tweets: "I know this is not a very rapper thing to say but I haven't bought a new car or piece of jewelry in about 2 years..."
At this point, you might be chuckling. But peer through his eccentricity and you might conclude that he's right. Most products that one sees in the wide world are homogenized dull lumps of beige. Most have the taste level of Ann Taylor's spinster sister.
Why not strive to create things that are a little more aesthetically pleasing and functional at the same time? Or, to use Kanye's words: "We need to take what Michael Jackson felt and Mcqueen and Steve Jobs and we need make things better..."
You might think that the great rapper is merely using Steve Jobs' name symbolically.
However, just before he (presumably) went to bed last night, Kanye offered this tweet: "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. ...."
You see. This really is all about Apple. Or, rather, Apples.
