Susan Kare Mac OS Icon sketchbook 1982 Not on view; Medium Bound sketchbook, ink and felt-tipped pen on paper Dimensions 7 1/8 x 6 1/2' (18.1 x 16.5 cm). Susan Kare’s icons and fonts for the original Macintosh were revolutionary. They gave a lifeless computer a warmth and personality that lives on in the modern Mac to this day. This month Susan Kare was awarded an AIGA medal, putting her in the company of design greats like Paul Rand, Charles and Ray Eames, Milton Glaser and Saul Steinberg.
Back in May, London’s Design Museum launched an ongoing exhibition called California: Designing Freedom, a collection tracing the journey from 60s counterculture to Silicon Valley’s tech culture and how ‘Designed in California’ became a global phenomenon.
In this article: design, fonts, icon, susan kare As one of the original members of Apple's Macintosh team, Susan Kare played an integral role in determining the look and feel for the original Mac OS. Photo: Fast Company/Susan Kare There’s no more famous name in computer icon design than Susan Kare, who remains best known for creating the famous icons for the original Macintosh. #studio64podcasts #socialtechpioneersSocial Tech Pioneers: Susan Kare Apple Mac Icon Designer Tribute Supertramp Dreamer: https://www.youtube.com/w.
It’s impossible to think of the counterculture and Silicon Valley without considering Apple, and naturally, the exhibition has an entire section dedicated to the way the Mac revolutionised personal computing.
Check out Susan Kare’s original icon sketches for the Apple Macintosh graphic interface that revolutionised personal computing.
A key focus of the section is dedicated to the contribution of designer Susan Kare towards the Mac’s user interface. In particular, the user-friendly symbols she created, displayed through a collection of original rough sketches she drew on squared paper.
Susan Kare Icons Png
Chatting to It’s Nice That, exhibition curator Brendan McGetrick discussed how important it was to have Kare’s contributions to the Mac’s user interface a part of the show:
“The Mac was the first truly personal computer – one of its tag lines was ‘the computer for the rest of us’ – and it was designed to be used by theoretically everyone.
Susan designed the icons for the Macintosh’s graphical user interface. At the time, the notion of a GUI was revolutionary: just a few years prior to the Mac’s release, people could only interface with a computer through arcane commands written in code. By providing an image-based way to execute computer commands, the Macintosh made computers more intuitive and less intimidating.
As part of the original Mac team, Kare created some of the first digital fonts, the UI for MacPaint and some of the most persistent icons in computing such as the trash can/bin, the save disk and the smiling Mac. Kare added to the UI an element of friendliness and emotion. The icons that she designed were playful and simple enough to be recognisable to users around the world.”
If you’re in London before October 17, be sure to check out the California: Designing Freedom exhibition at the Design Museum, London.
Check out some of Kare’s fascinating sketches of these iconic symbols below and more here.
Susan Kare Icons Book
Susan Kare Mac Icons Download
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