Flickr Find: Unusual Apple designs from the early 90s

@jared: Yes, seriously. This is like a bad recollection of "don't mention the war" a la Fawlty Towers. It's a design mag, not a Japanese "guns & ammo".

"They would know its historical use more than its standard definition, I would argue."

A bit ignorant, perhaps. At least as seen from the view of the company, the editors and the native speaker living in Japan. This "issue" has more to do with people's view of the matter outside of Japan, not necessarily the native speakers living inside Japan. If you have touched upon Japan and the Japanese language you would know how they love to use "larger than life" kind of metaphors, hence my "the axis the world revolves around" comment above.

On the other hand, I'm probably a bit biased an ignorant, as well. As AXIS is also available outside of Japan and since both you and Joe made that connection one might assume that others might as well. In that regard, fair enough. The publisher could/should perhaps given it a second thought.

Sorry, didn't mean to blow this up.

Er...? The name has more in common with an "axis around which things revolve". In this case it's the "world of design". Then again, I guess it's in human nature to interpret things the worst possible way, rather than pick what one might expect would be a more obvious meaning.

I've been following this mag for some years, used material from it for my bachelor etc and I have not once made the connection you just did. Why would I? Pragmatically, there's no context that could in any way imply what you just interpreted.

I sure do hope you don't think that way were you to see anything labeled "German".

I think that if I were a Japanese magazine, I'd refrain from using words which could also describe ties to WWII-era Germany.

Isn't that Knowledge Navigator guy's office the same one that Fletch almost got shot in?

Several of these pictures are also included in the book "Apple Design: The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group" by Paul Kunkel. 1997, Graphics Inc. ISBN 1-888-001-25-9. The book has many other interesting designs from Apple.