Here’s to Steve

I NEVER understood people crying after famous people. Nor crying. Not good at it.

But today, my eyes are swelled from crying after Steve Jobs.
It never dawned on me how huge of an inspiration and how much faith I had in this man with one shirt.

Story time!

A long time ago, I was a college dropout with a dream of following her passion in art.
It was 2006 and I had no idea how I was to follow my bliss and feed myself on the way.

Lucky girl that I am, I’ve been since crazy in love with a geek who shared his Apple enthusiasm with me. He was dreaming about these gorgeous MacBooks and showed me the iOS design, their prettiest little icons and talked about the man with an insane passion and a 1$ paycheck in a company whose logo I loved.

All I had known about it up until then was that Forrest Gump invested in it.
In a matter of a week, I developed a full-on fixation with Apple.

I put away my oil paints and started drawing icons instead. My geek and I dreamed of making it online.

In January 2007, the iPhone was announced and we watched the Keynote video with our jaws dropped. With my heart still racing, I ditched all the icons I made and started a new series. We opened an icon shop.
Few months later, my first freelance gig came.
And then second, and third. Every job listing was asking for “Apple style”.
Slick. Polished. With reflection.

I did not go to design school, I just checked how they did it. And then added a bit of me.

Someone gave me an Apple sticker. I put it on my third-hand Compaq laptop and played pretend.

For my 22nd birthday, Dom gave me a little box. Expecting a perfume, I squeaked like a child when underneath the wrap a pink iPod Shuffle smiled at me.
I’ve never seen anything Apple in person before. I made it a shirt and kept it with me at all times.

In 2008, I was still taking a photo of every encounter with an Apple product.

In 2009, I made a timeline of hours I had to work to buy a second-hand MacBook Pro and stick it across our office wall.
I scratched the days with gusto and went across border to get my first laptop.

Today is three and a half years since I’ve been working on this MacBook Pro, and I still have no doubts – like every other Mac user, that it was made specifically for me.

I’ve been salivating at each new product Steve announced and made fun of the names I kept mixing up.

Those shiny boxes of wonder, initially only a dream and now part of my life 24/7, made it possible for an easily distracted, non-techie dreamer from small town Croatia become an independent designer and illustrator and live out her dream.

So Steve being a household name in my little family is nothing weird. He made our dreams more deliciously possible, and that’s why I am OK with crying after him.

And while today there’s a heaviness on my chest, tomorrow it will be inspiration. Possibility.

Because I am hungry. I am foolish.

Thank you, Steve!