[grahamj]

I find it interesting that the final logo choice is not like any of the sketches. You could imagine that someone came along and went "no, not like any of that" and came up with something different.

It's also humorous to me that the designer was considering something that looks like an hour glass for the X. Imagine using a symbol for your powerful new computer that essentially means "wait".

[asveikau]

> hour glass for the X. Imagine using a symbol for your powerful new computer that essentially means "wait".

Are you sure you're not mixing timelines? Was the hourglass established for this metaphor in 1986?

I first remember the hourglass cursor from Windows 95. At the time Macintosh used a wristwatch. This struck me as similar to Microsoft using "recycle bin" because they borrowed a metaphor and didn't want to say "trash".

It wouldn't surprise me to see earlier uses of the metaphor, but some quick googling is not immediately revealing them to me.

Edit: this claims Xerox Star used the hourglass. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/wait-wait-tell-me/

[grahamj]

I don't know if it was used in computer iconography at that time but I would have expected a designer to see it that way regardless. It means the same thing as the old Mac watch and is why MS used it in Windows.

PS I miss that watch! It was way better than the beachball.

[JKCalhoun]

And the "beach ball" was originally the optical drive spinning, seeking.

[Lammy]

> It's also humorous to me that the designer was considering something that looks like an hour glass for the X. Imagine using a symbol for your powerful new computer that essentially means "wait".

I assume that association is why Rand abandoned the concept, but the opposing arrows also represent a crossing-over / pulling-apart / creating-reality / 2D-becomes-3D / new-dimension kind of thing.

The eventual Mac OS X uses the same symbolism. I remember being irrationally annoyed back in the day at the way Stebe Jovs would pronounce it “Mac OS Ecks” instead of “Mac OS Ten”, and it took me like twenty years to realize that it is actually Mac OS Ecks — it's Mac OS Up + Down. Peep the negative space and you can see the arrowheads, plus the axial tilt and crossing-over encoded in the way one opposing arm and leg of the Garamond X are thicker: https://www.flickr.com/photos/joewhk/1805068540

[vitaflo]

They're sketches, it's part of the brainstorming process. As stated in the final presentation, Rand was trying to get away from the capital "EXT" in the name from reading like "EXIT". He ended up using a lowercase E for that, but it's obvious from the sketches he started first by stylizing the X instead, basing it on the Bifur typeface (as referenced in the presentation booklet).

Since the logo with the "hourglass" styling was never presented to NeXT, it was obvious that it wasn't considered a strong candidate to show as part of the design process for any number of reasons.

It's important to remember that brainstorming and sketching are just that. You're just trying to get all the ideas out there, you critique them afterwards. We usually do not see those sketches, so I wouldn't take them literally.