I woke up this morning at 5:30am to the tragic news that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, has died, age 56. As an avid Apple fan for the last 15 years I knew the day wasn’t far away, especially since his recent resignation as CEO, but what I felt this morning was not expected. I felt truly saddened and upset at the loss of someone I didn’t know, never met and someone who was just the CEO of a big company.

Why is this? Why should I care? Why did it have this effect on me? You can read a thousand blogs describing Jobs as a visionary, a leader and one of the greatest inventors of the last century. All of these are true, but the way Steve changed the face of technology when he and Steve Wozniak started Apple in 1976 and went on to launch the first personal computer, the Macintosh in 1981 has had a profound effect on my life and what I do for a living.

As a designer it is hard to imagine a life without Apple. Since I was a student starting out in design I have been surrounded by Apple. The fact that I wake up as a designer, come into work and use a mouse and a keyboard all day is largely down to Steve’s vision for a better future. This vision has crept into so many areas of my life – how I phone my wife, listen to music, surf the net in the evening. Apart from actual conversations, in person, with real people pretty much all my communication and sourcing of information happens on a device baring that Apple logo.

It’s true to say that Apple wasn’t the first company to do many things – The MP3 player, the smartphone, the tablet, the music store. But it certainly is the one company which has done these things better and made them appeal to the mass market. You could say that this is down to Apple’s huge marketing machine and a faithful following unlike any other company, but really it’s down to Steve, and his vision to ‘Think Different’ and make stuff that ‘Just Works’.

The run up to any Steve Jobs keynote at an Apple product announcement was always heavily anticipated and his enthusiasm and absolute, unrelenting passion for making life that little bit better through technology was obvious. Some people in business do it for the money. Sure Steve was a multi-billionaire, but you just always got the feeling that as long as he had enough cash for his trademark black jumper, blue jeans and white trainers, he’d do what he did for nothing. For the love of it.

I think this video, narrated by Steve pretty much sums him up -

I’m sure Apple will continue innovating and creating amazing new products which will make my life ‘that little bit better’, but I’m not sure it’ll ever be quite the same without him.

Steve Jobs – absolutely, definitely, undeniably NOT JUST A CEO – we salute you.

We wanted to do our own little tribute to Steve, which can only really come in one form which we think he’d appreciate – Doodles.

Our tribute to Steve

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

With Rugby World Cup fever well and truly upon us, we thought it only right that we dust off the pens and get doodling.

If you’ve been on our site before you may have noticed our doodles section. We aren’t claiming that they’re works of art, in fact some of the best are the less than perfect ones, but we do like to take time out now and then as a team and doodle.

We usually base it around a sporting or showbiz event so past doodles have included The Brit Awards, The Oscars and Wimbledon.

It was only right that we doodle some rugby players, as we’ve been following the tournament and even coming into the studio early to watch some of the games before work.

Have a look at the latest Bluegg doodles and let us know if you have a favourite in the comments.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, Rob has been in LA this week. Last year he was lucky enough to win tickets for the viewing area at the 2011 Oscars – a real once in a lifetime opportunity. To celebrate this we updated our Doodles section with some new doodles of some of the Oscar winners and losers.

Our doodles have become a really popular area of our website and people seem to love it when we add new ones. It all started a couple of years ago when we began doing little doodle contests for the team. Basically we would all have 30 seconds to a minute to draw a celebrity. It was a great way to give us a rest from the screens we stare at all day, and a new way to explore our creativity – plus it’s a good laugh when we do the big reveal!

One day we had a few clients over for coffee and they spotted a big pile of doodles. After watching them giggle their way through the whole pile we thought it would be good to put them out there for the world to see! We’ve also just added a new section from the Brit Awards 2011 so make sure you check them out >

We also had a bit of a mischievous week, much to Rob’s dismay. You see, Rob loves spreadsheets, and we mean LOVES. So much so that he bought his very own mug which quite clearly proves this fact. Over the last few months, he’s become very attached to this mug so we thought only fair to teach him a lesson for ditching us for the glitz and glam of the red carpet.

For the last five days we’ve been tweeting Rob pictures of his beloved mug in various precarious scenarios…

We’re not sure we should quote any of his replies!