A lot has been written today about the passing of Steve Jobs and rightly so. He was a visionary, who exercised a lasting influence on modern culture, worldwide. Jobs inspired his engineers and designers to create with great thought to human interface, ultimately touching every segment of the population, from pre-schoolers to the President. It is no understatement to say that Steve Jobs irrevocably changed the face of communication as we know it.

I recall my first experience with Apple, it was my junior year of high school and I took a serendipitous class called Computer Math. Being more of an art person, I hated math – really loathed it – so the concept of whiling away my year in a pseudo-math oriented class where I could fool with computers and cover that last dreaded math credit for my diploma seemed perfect to me. It also didn’t hurt that my boyfriend (who is now my husband) was in the class. And I spent two glorious semesters writing Apple Basic code to create interesting pictures on those beige machines with the funny, rainbow-colored logo.

I still have no idea how that qualified as a math credit — but who am I to question the choices of the Chesterfield County School Board. Whoever is responsible for making that class a reality, I sincerely thank you. It began a life-long love affair for me with Apple Computers.

I went on to study Communication Arts and Design at Virginia Commonwealth University. My graduating class was one of the first to merge computers in art and design. We built the first Mac lab at VCU, filled it with SEs then updated it with Quadras. I spent many long hours in that lab, late into the night, face lit by the cold blue light of CRT monitors. The hours seemed to fly by in the Mac lab.

I bought my first mac after school with the meager salary from my first job. It was better than my first car.

I have made my living on Macs, first doing graphic design and now creating illustration. I’m even writing this post on my iPad. I’ve recently been experimenting with sketches and color illustrations on this elegant sliver of electronic innovation. Even my daughter, an aspiring artist, herself, creates on a Mac. Our whole family are Apple users.

It’s a unique fraternity, the cult of Apple — that sense of solidarity when you spot that ubiquitous logo on someone’s car window, or the unmistakable silhouette of an iMac on the big screen. The world has come a long way from my days of Apple Basic in Computer Math.

So thank you, Steve, for being an innovator, for having the courage to “think different”, for quietly turning the world on its ear and championing creativity and beautiful, thoughtful design (so well executed that we take it for granted).You may be gone, but your legacy will live on.