Marc Newson

Anyone who is interested in design will know of Marc Newson.  Marc was once named one of the World’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine.

He’s a personal inspiration, hailing from Australia as I do, and he started out doing a 3D design course vaguely similar to the one I enrolled in after leaving school. The (immense) difference was that while he went abroad to pursue a stellar career in design, I ditched my studies very early on (youthful arrogance and impetuousness) and went travelling, stumbling from one odd job to another. As he left Japan in 1991, I arrived. My journey took me from English language teaching to working for an IT systems integrator in Tokyo. I’ve been in IT ever since.  My direction might have changed significantly during a brief period in the mid 90s when I encountered one of Marc’s peers.

My role in Apple computer support offered much more interesting work than what occupied the time of my colleagues at the small Tokyo-based PC reseller and services company that employed me. I spent days or even weeks doing solo projects at creative clients like Tokyo Journal (they made me a contributor for one of their issues). I’m pleased to say TJ is still a going concern, and is the oldest English language magazine in Japan.

Along the way I met Silas Hickey, who went on to collaborate with Marc on this project for the Sydney Olympics. Silas brought in one of his Mac Quadras to have it upgraded, and being an extroverted and quite personable fella, he told me all about the amazing web design work he was contracted to do for companies like Quiksilver and Cartier. I marvelled at the lifestyle of these New Media types (it was the mid-90s remember), flitting between Tokyo, Los Angeles and  New York.  He evangelised about the future of the commercial web, and later in an email introduced me to Marc’s work on a Ford design exercise.

It’s no point wondering where I might have been if I’d stuck with the design studies, or even later, inspired by Silas, revisited them in some way, but I’ve never completely given up the notion I might take a radical departure from that reliable old IT cash mule, and go off to more rewarding creative pursuits.

I’m so full of shit. Of course I won’t.

Some images from Marc’s design portfolio.



One response to “Marc Newson”

  1. […] the deserved level of recognition on home soil. Previously I’ve highlighted the genius of Marc Newsom, who has been a source of personal inspiration.  Then there were the plasticised worlds of Brian […]

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