The best thing about my Mac Studio is its mustache

It’s not all Marie Kondo about it, but my Mac Studio brings me joy every day, and it’s not just because it’s the fastest computer I’ve ever owned. It’s not strictly about the front-facing ports that Apple has provided, nor is it the village of rear ports.

Look, I found this mustache sticker on the back of a drawer in my house. I don’t know where it came from, only that it was there, and the moment I found it, I instantly knew where to put it: smack-dab in the middle of my Mac studio. I’ve been thinking for a while that the studio has this goofy face on the front, and slapped a curly ‘stache on it and carried the house. It makes me happy, and lately, I’ve been thinking about why this stupid tweet addition to my computer makes me so happy.

When my partner and I sold our old house to move to another state a few years ago, we wanted to sell it as is. We painted it pink, and inside, we covered some of the walls with murals—a desert scene that I painted in the dining room and a geometric pattern that my partner painstakingly covered our bedroom walls, for example. When our realtor colleagues did a walkthrough to give us recommendations, he told us that we should paint everything with something neutral like gray or white.

He told us that a potential buyer might otherwise fall in love with the house, then walk into the bedroom, see the intricate linework on the wall and say, “Ohhhh no,” and decide not to buy for that very reason. People want to imagine themselves in space, he says, and they’re not always imaginative enough to see past an already colorful wall. They need a blank canvas.

It has since occurred to me that at least some people (myself included) have implemented this same concept in Apple’s product design, and by extension, the design of many other technology products by companies that strike the same notes.

Many of Apple’s devices — its laptops, desktops, phones, and more — are characterized by this expanse of flat emptiness. Their featureless planes often break only when they have to; By a keyboard or a USB-C port, for example. These days the company no longer prints “Macbook” under the screen. It’s easy to call it boring, but I disagree.

I’d argue that simplicity gives it a lot more personality than some of the One-Notes sported by, for example, basically every gaming router, which often overwhelms you with them. thing, no matter what

Some people like this sort of thing – and that’s okay! I do too. But as the saying goes, it takes all kinds to make a world, and from my general point of view design isn’t always about what’s there, but sometimes what’s not. Where one person sees a large, uncreative flat space behind a MacBook Air’s display, another person sees a canvas that they can truly reflect on using stickers, Sharpies, or even paint.

Or, you know, a mustache.