ThinkPad Design
Here you can find information about the optical design of ThinkPads as well as accompanied marketing material and branding products like Screensavers, Wallpapers etc. .
ThinkPad Design
According to Wikipedia, the Design work on the first ThinkPads was done at IBM's Yamato Design Center in Japan. The clean black lines of the ThinkPad were inspired by ShÅkadÅ bentÅ, a traditional black-lacquered Japanese lunch box.
ThinkPad Marketing
The introduction of the ThinkPad i series was accompanied by a marketing campain, developed by the japanese designer Ken Miki. The campain was built around a "ThinkPad Dog", which was a black labrador with a red nose. The nose carried a strong association with the strongest ThinkPad brand symbol, the ThinkPad TrackPoint.
The ThinkPad Dog Screensaver (for Windows) can still be downloaded from IBM's website.