Apple's Last Product Launch for 2016: Designed by Apple in California Coffee Table Book

Distinctive design has become the hallmark of Apple products. Steve Jobs’ partnerships with Hartmut Esslinger in the 1980s and then with Jony Ive starting in 1997 created an engineering and design aesthetic that set Apple apart from its rivals and made it the most valuable company in the world.

Steve Jobs was highly influenced by the teachings of the Bauhaus. One of the quotes that designers regularly throw around, or post, on their Facebook wall and Twitter feed, is Jobs’ famous “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” This quote, however, shows specifically how much Jobs, and Apple as a whole, was influenced by Bauhaus.

Apple has announced the release of a new hardbound book chronicling 20 years of Apple’s design, expressed through 450 photographs of past and current Apple products. “Designed by Apple in California,” which covers products from 1998’s iMac to 2015’s Apple Pencil, also documents the materials and techniques used by Apple’s design team over two decades of innovation.

The book is dedicated to the memory of Steve Jobs. Jobs repeatedly emphasized that Apple’s mantra would be simplicity. “We will make them bright and pure and honest about being high-tech, rather than a heavy industrial look of black, black, black, black, like Sony,” he preached.

“The idea of genuinely trying to make something great for humanity was Steve’s motivation from the beginning, and it remains both our ideal and our goal as Apple looks to the future,” said Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer. “This archive is intended to be a gentle gathering of many of the products the team has designed over the years. We hope it brings some understanding to how and why they exist, while serving as a resource for students of all design disciplines.”

The products in this book are the result of a profoundly close collaboration between many different groups. Shot by photographer Andrew Zuckerman in a deliberately spare style, the book’s 450 images illustrate Apple’s design process as well as its finished products.

“Designed by Apple in California” is available in two sizes and printed on specially milled, custom-dyed paper with gilded matte silver edges, using eight color separations and low-ghost ink. This linen-bound, hardcover volume was developed over an eight-year period. It is published by Apple.