This collection of three buttons is from an Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) event during which ADEs learned about the “Yes, and…” principle of improvisational comedy, or “improv.”
Improv comedy performers work together to “define the parameters and action of the scene, in a process of co-creation.” An improv performer must accept the premise of another performer (i.e., “yes,”) and then add to it (i.e., “and…”). “It is the responsibility of the other improvisers to accept the offers that their fellow performers make… Accepting an offer is usually accompanied by adding a new offer, often building on the earlier one” (Wikipedia).
Modern improvisational comedy began to be formalized in Chicago, through exercises developed by Viola Spolin, who influenced “the first generation of modern American improvisers at The Compass Players in Chicago, which led to The Second City” (Wikipedia).
At this ADE event, we used the “Yes!…and” idea as a foundation for educational collaboration. Educators worked in small groups with San Francisco-based improv performer/teacher Rebecca Stockley to learn the concept.
One of the white buttons features the Apple Distinguished Educators logo of the time (an iMac with a woodcut design with the Apple Distinguished Educators logotype) and the words Yes!…and, in the Myriad Apple font. Another button features the words Yes!…and, in the Myriad Apple font superimposed over a gray world map on a white button. A third, smaller button with a black background features the words Yes…And! in white in the Gill Sans font (used in the Newton product line from 1993–1998).
Wikipedia (Improvisational theatre, typography of Apple)
