developed by Esslinger and his team at frog Studio 3214 Hifi Esslinger was born in Beuren (
Simmersfeld), in Germany's
Black Forest. At age 25, Esslinger finished his studies at the
Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd in
Schwäbisch Gmünd. After facing vicious criticism of a
radio clock he designed while in school and the disapproval of his mother (who burned his sketchbooks), he started his own design agency in 1969,
Esslinger Design, later renamed
Frogdesign. For his first client, German
avant-garde consumer electronics company
Wega, he designed the first color TV without a wood frame and the Wega HiFi System 3000, which won him instant international fame. The Sony-Wega Music System Concept 51K was acquired by the
Museum of Modern Art,
New York. In 1976, Esslinger also worked for
Louis Vuitton. In 1982 he entered into an exclusive $2,000,000 per year contract with
Apple Computer to create a design strategy which transformed Apple from a
Silicon Valley startup into a global brand. Setting up shop in California for the first time, Esslinger and Frogdesign created the
Snow White design language, which was applied to all Apple product lines from 1984 to 1990, starting with the
Apple IIc and including the
Macintosh II computer. The original Apple IIc was acquired by the
Whitney Museum of Art in
New York and
Time voted it Design of the Year. Soon after
Steve Jobs' departure, Esslinger broke his own contract with Apple and followed Jobs to
NeXT. Other major client engagements include
Lufthansa's global design and brand strategy,
SAP's corporate identity and software user interface,
Microsoft Windows branding and user interface design,
Siemens,
NEC,
Olympus,
HP,
Motorola and
General Electric. In December 1990 Esslinger was featured on the cover of
BusinessWeek, the only living designer thus honored since
Raymond Loewy in 1934. The cover included the headline "Rebel with a cause," referencing his controversial personality and desire to be seen as a non-conformist within the field of design, as well as the movie
Rebel Without a Cause, which Esslinger has described as his first American movie and a cultural inspiration. Esslinger is a founding Professor of the
Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design,
Germany, and since 2006 he is a Professor for convergent industrial design at the
University of Applied Arts in
Vienna,
Austria. In 1996, Esslinger was awarded an
honorary doctorate of Fine Arts by the
Parsons School of Design,
New York City. Since 2012 Esslinger has served as a DeTao Master of Industrial Design with
The Beijing DeTao Masters Academy (DTMA) in Shanghai, China. In 2009 Esslinger published
A Fine Line in which he explores business solutions that are environmentally sustainable and contribute to an enduring global economy. == Notable awards and accomplishments ==