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.
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. Susan Kare designed a version of that disk, as part of the suite of icons that made the Macintosh revolutionary—a computer that you could communicate with in pictures. 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 is a pioneering and influential computer iconographer. She has designed thousands of software icons that are familiar to anyone who uses a computer. The Museum of Modern Art in New York praised Kare’s designs for being able to “communicate their function immediately and memorably, with wit and style.”.
In 1983, the dog icon had been created by Susan Kare as the glyph for 'z', as part of the Cairo font. Later, when designing the classic Mac OS 'Page Setup' print dialog box, an example image was required to demonstrate the orientation and color of the paper.2.
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.
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.
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When it appeared in 1984, the Macintosh blew people away with its graphical interface, its mouse, and its unusual industrial design.
It also charmed customers with its cute, approachable icons, from the smiling Mac that appeared while it was booting to the bomb that popped up when something went terribly wrong. The Mac’s many icons were the work of Susan Kare, a painter who landed at Apple at just the right time and came to play a key role in the original Macintosh team. Kare started sketching icons on graph paper using markers, and eventually wound up designing many of the interface elements in the Mac. Her designs helped shape the personality of the Mac, giving it a touch of whimsy and friendliness not seen in computers before.
Kare went on to design icons for Windows, OS/2 and even designed the Solitaire deck that shipped with Windows. She’s just come out with a retrospective book showcasing her work, Susan Kare ICONS, and it’s a great opportunity for students of design to stop and consider what separates interfaces that people merely use from the ones that people actually love. You can also buy fine art prints of her classic icons from her site.
There aren’t too many designers whose work can honestly be described as “iconic,” but in Kare’s case, that adjective is true both literally and figuratively.
VentureBeat interviewed Kare via e-mail recently. Here’s the (lightly edited) text of our exchange.
Did you try many different versions of your classic Mac icons before settling on the right ones?
It was definitely an interative process. I always like to work with placeholders and tweak and improve images while there’s time. I remember trying a lot of different images for “copy” (some involving mirrors) and “undo.” Abstract nouns and verbs are always tough.
Lots of people must be designing icons now, for websites and software. What are some examples that you really admire?
Never say never, but I tend to prefer simple imagery for user interfaces without too much detail. I remember reading in Scott McCloud’s book, Understanding Comics, why more people can “see” themselves in a simple smile face graphic than a detailed drawing of Prince Valiant. This principle applies to icons: Universality is good. So a very detailed, very specific icon of a certain type of writing implement seems less effective as a symbol.
One detail: I can never understand why the red circle-with-slash is occasionally used to mean “delete” when it means something is prohibited.
Susan Kare Mac Icons Youtube
Your icons play a huge role in the personality and approachability of the interfaces they appear in. They’re also very clear and understandable. What advice do you have for people designing interfaces or websites?
Thank you! I try to think hard about the meaning of icons and look at them in context (in a mockup) and exercise restraint. You don’t want the UI to compete with the data.
What are you really excited about that’s just coming up in terms of computer design or interface design?
The thermostat from Nest looks great!
It seems like you sort of fell into icon design by being in the right place at the right time. Yet this is a seemingly very limited medium. Are you able to express yourself as an artist through computer icons? Or do you have other outlets (like painting)?
Some projects have many constraints in terms of limited screen real estate or palette, but the problems to solve are always interesting. I also love working on logos and working with type. And I have always enjoyed making sculpture.
Images courtesy Susan Kare.
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