I recently completed an intro sequence for David Greelish’s upcoming documentary Before Macintosh: The Apple Lisa. As my familiarity of the Lisa focuses on the system’s design language, I decided the best way to highlight the innovations of the the Lisa was through The Lisa Office System.
The Lisa Office System is a collection of seven applications similar to Microsoft’s Office Suite which included LisaWrite, LisaCalc, LisaDraw, LisaGraph, LisaProject, LisaList, and LisaTerminal. These tools would give most user’s everything they would need for common office tasks.
Even today, Microsoft’s suite bears a strong resemblance to Apple’s Lisa collection.
LisaList Detail
LisaWrite detail
LisaCalc detail
The Lisa Office System
These graphics are my 2.5D interpretations of The Lisa Office System box artwork which animate onto the screen in a “flat gridland” all building to the reveal of the Lisa computer itself.
Before Macintosh: The Apple Lisa - Title card
Working on this project was a great opportunity to brush up on my motion graphics and sound design skills. As a result of the time spent on recreating the individual box graphics you can look forward to papercraft of each of these boxes coming soon.
I will be sure to post an update as soon as this documentary is released. I have seen some early footage and I learned a lot of facts about the Lisa. A lot of great folks involved with the Lisa’s development and scene share their stories making this a must-see for vintage computer fans.