Most of the icons you see/will see on the site were done by me. I was also commissioned for a redesign which, unfortunately, I didn’t have time to complete for the launch due to my move to California and beginning my job at Apple. David did a great job on the redesign though, so I know you’ll enjoy using it.

Tumblr is among my absolute favorite web apps, and I’m glad to have a good relationship with this talented bunch. Good luck with the launch, fellas. Oh, and David: take a vacation!

While there are a lot of things I’d like to write about, I thought I’d just jump in and let you know that the first day at Apple went really, really well. The second day went even better. My job is quite exciting, and I feel really lucky to be in a situation like this — I keep expecting to wake up into some sort of cruel reality where Apple never hired me at all. Thankfully, I don’t think this is the case.

Expect more from me soon!

In January of this year, I decided that heading off to college right after high school was completely out of the question. It’s not that I think education is unimportant, or that I’m “too good for such nonsense” — it’s just that I felt like my life was gaining professional momentum, and I didn’t want to be foolish enough to break it. However, one of the problems with not going to college is that you can’t relocate very easily — I really, really wanted to get out into the world and experience something new. And that’s what I set out to do.

The initial plan was to join the wonderful team at Last.fm in England. So, I packed my bags and left the United States on the 20th of June for London . . . I was back in the US within 48 hours, after a rather horrifying misunderstanding with the British government caused me to be deported “on her Majesty’s service.” It was quite a shock, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything in the world. I’ll write about this story at some point in the near future.

The following months proved to be really interesting for me. I bought an iPhone and co-created PocketTweets, got about a dozen full-time job offers from people I’ve never even met, attended C4[1] (I even got to speak for a bit!), and worked on some of my biggest projects yet. I even sat back and watched a lot of my friends go off to college, wondering when my “path” would be revealed to me. I was on the outside looking in, observing people drifting towards their futures. I was feeling a little displaced. On top of that, my client work had gotten a little out of control. Handling ten clients at once doesn’t sound easy, and it’s absolutely not — and it’s even worse when one or two of those clients are unreasonable lunatics. Something needed to change.

Then, on August 15th, I got an email from Apple saying that they had come across my portfolio and wanted to talk with me about a career. I’m not going to lie: I was excited immediately.

After a few successful phone interviews, I flew out to California on September 11th for the in-person interview. That night, I stayed up until 2AM working on the portfolio keynote that I had to give to the .Mac team, and kind of dreaded the 8-hour interview ahead of me. Believe it or not, this was my first job interview, so I had absolutely no idea what was ahead of me.

I arrived at De Anza 6 the next morning feeling pretty energetic from a few cups of coffee. I was soon escorted off to a conference room where I hooked up my MacBook Pro to a projector and prepared for the presentation I was about to give. After all of the group had filtered in, I gave my portfolio presentation, which, as I was told later, “went very well.” The rest of the day involved one-on-one interviews, mostly with members of the creative team at .Mac. I expected to get along with them well, but I didn’t expect to get along with them this well. Everyone I met was nothing short of extremely talented and friendly, and I couldn’t envision there being any potential problems working with a group like them. Things were looking good.

In the weeks that followed, I sat in anticipation and agony, wondering if I really was going to get the job or not. This would be a huge step for me, and I was absolutely ready to take it.

Well, today I am pleased to announce that, starting October 8th, I’ll be a visual interface designer for .Mac at Apple. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be taking this position, and I’ll make sure to post about the whole transition here on Implodr.

But what about the Pixel Implosion? Well, the Implosion’s future is a little uncertain right now . . . whatever the outcome, I promise you I’m not going to disappear. In fact, I think you’ll be hearing and seeing more from me on the side! Implodr posts? Yes! PocketTweets 2? Yes! Something else? Definitely! Of course, I’ll be very limited as to what I can say about Apple itself. But, that’s a given.

Until next time,
-Bobby

My name is Bobby Andersen and I’m a 19-year-old graphic designer from Denver, Colorado. 2007 has been a ridiculously eventful year for me, and every time something happens I wish I had a decent place to publish my reaction and thoughts about it. This is one of the reasons I created Implodr, and I hope I can successfully make it the center of my online presence for some time to come. Implodr content will be about — but not limited to — my life, design, music, technology and entertainment. No, there’s no real theme here, unless you count me.

There are still a ton of problems with the site that need to be addressed (for example, please don’t look at this site in IE6), but I’ll fix those whenever I have the time.

Talk to you soon,
-Bobby

P.S. If you check out Implodr on your iPhone, you’ll find that’s been optimized for mobile Safari. Enjoy!