Susan Kare

Susan Kare(/kɛər/"care"; born February 5, 1954) is an American artist andgraphic designer, who contributedinterfaceelements andtypefacesfor the firstAppleMacintoshpersonal computer from 1983 to 1986.She was employee #10 and creative director atNeXT, the company formed bySteve Jobsafter he left Apple in 1985. She has worked as a design consultant toMicrosoft,IBM,Sony Pictures,Facebook, andPinterest. As of 2023, Kare is employed atNiantic Labs.As a pioneer ofpixel artand of thegraphical computer interface, she has been celebrated as one of the most significant designers of modern technology.
Kare was born inIthaca, New York. Her father was a professor at theUniversity of Pennsylvaniaand director of theMonell Chemical Senses Center, a research facility for the senses of taste and smell.Her mother taught hercounted-thread embroideryas she immersed herself in drawings, paintings, and crafts.Her brother was aerospace engineerJordin Kare.She graduated fromHarriton High Schoolin 1971. She graduatedsumma cum laudewith a B.A. in art fromMount Holyoke Collegein 1975, with an undergraduate honors thesis on mathematics. She received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in fine arts fromNew York Universityin 1978 with a doctoral dissertation on "the use of caricature in selected sculptures ofHonoré DaumierandClaes Oldenburg". Her goal was "to be either a fine artist or teacher".
Susan Kare's career has always focused on fine art.For several summers during high school she interned at theFranklin Institutefor designer Harry Loucks, who introduced her totypographyand graphic design while she didphototypesettingwith "strips of type for labels in a dark room on a PhotoTypositor".Because she did not attend an artist training school, she built her experience and portfolio by taking many pro-bono graphics jobs such as posters and brochure design in college, holiday cards, and invitations.After her Ph.D., she moved to San Francisco to work at theFine Arts Museums of San Francisco(FAMSF),as sculptorand occasional curator.She later reflected that her "ideal life would be to make art full-time but that sculpture was too solitary".
In 1982, Kare was welding a life-sized razorback hog sculpture commissioned by an Arkansas museum when she received a phone call from high school friendAndy Hertzfeld. In exchange for anApple IIcomputer, he solicited her to hand-draw a few icons and font elements to inspire the upcomingMacintoshcomputer.However, she had no experience in computer graphics and "didn't know the first thing about designing a typeface" orpixel artso she drew heavily upon her fine art experience inmosaics,needlepoint, andpointillism.He suggested that she get aUS$2.50grid notebookof the smallest graph paper she could find at the University Art store in Palo Altoand mock up several32 × 32 pixelrepresentations of his software commands and applications.This includes an icon of scissors for the "cut" command, a finger for "paste", and a paintbrush forMacPaint.Compelled to actually join the team for a fixed-length part-time job,she interviewed "totally green" but undaunted, bringing a variety of typography books from thePalo Altopublic library to show her interestalongside her well-prepared notebook.She "aced" the interviewand was hired in January 1983 with Badge #3978.Her business cards read "Macintosh Artist".
As a computer novice in the target market of the Macintosh, she easily grasped theTwiggy-based Macintosh prototype which "felt like a magical leap forward" for art design.She preferred it over the Apple IIand was amazed and excited by the computer screen's design capability to undo, redo, and iterate an icon or letterform while seeing it simultaneously at enlarged and 100% target sizes.She immediately embracedBill Atkinson's existing rudimentary graphics software tools and applications, to toggle pixels on and off and convert the resulting images tohexadecimalcode for keyboard input.More advanced graphical tools were written for her by Hertzfeld,and she embellished the flagship applicationMacPaint's user interface while the programmers matured it to become her primary tool.She contributed to the Macintosh identity and devised ways to make the machine humanized, intuitively usable, relatable, and inviting.
Her whimsical personality was essential to the infectiously budding culture and lore of the early Macintosh team, and infused into the product. She stunned the staff of accomplished pixel artists and engineers with her unexpectedly personable renditions of their portraits in the Mac's standard32 × 32pixel monochrome resolution for icons.She andSteve Cappssewed aJolly Rogerpirate flag with a rainbow colored Apple logo eyepatch, as the christening brand of the new Macintosh headquarters at Brandley 3, embracingSteve Jobs' ethos "it's better to be a pirate than to join the Navy".Working as the only graphic designer in a diverse and articulate team of programmers and with Hertzfeld as the primary requester, she spent hours or days at a time developing a rich selection of graphics for the consensus-driven feedback loop for each GUI element. Jobs personally approved each of her main desktop icons.Kare participated heavily in the prerelease marketing campaign for the Macintosh in 1983 by posing for magazine photo shoots, appearing in television advertisements, and demonstrating the Mac on television talk shows.
In only one year, she designed the core visual design language of the original Macintosh which launched in January 1984. This includes original marketing material and manytypefacesand icons, some of which became patented.As a whole platform of their own, these designs comprise the first visual language for the identity of the Macintosh and for Apple's pioneering ofgraphical user interface(GUI) computing.
She refined Apple's existing iconography anddesktop metaphorsimported from the Macintosh's predecessor, theLisa,such as thetrash can,dog-earedpaper icon, andI-beam cursor. She devised the practice of associating unique document icons with their creator applications.The team's GUI elements such as the Lasso, the Grabber, and the Paint Bucket became universal staples of computing. Her original cult classic icons include Clarus theDogcowseen in the print dialog box, theHappy Macicon of the smiling computer that welcomes users at system startup, and theCommand keysymbol on Apple keyboards.Aligned withSteve Jobs's passion for calligraphy,she designed the world's first proportionally spaced digital font familyincludingChicagoandGeneva, and themonospacedMonaco. Chicago is her first font, made especially for systemwide use in menus and dialog; it has a bold vertical look initially named Elefont,in which Kare implemented Jobs's idea of variable spacing, where each character can have the unique pixel width that it needs, to differentiate the computer from a monospaced typewriter.Cairois a set of icons in font form, for combining graphics directly into text, akin to "proto-emojis".
She became a Creative Director in Apple Creative Services working for the department director, Tom Suiter, "at a time when it seemed as if the main Mac development was over".
Smithsonian Magazinesummarizes her groundbreaking Macintosh work: "It was an intense time with untold pressure to perform on a new product launch that demanded countless hours of work, rework and work again to get everything right." Kare recalled the privilege of being directly taught by engineers how early software is assembled:"I loved working on that project—always felt so lucky for the opportunity to be a nontechnical person in a software group. I was awed by being able to collaborate with such creative, capable and dedicated engineers. My ‘work/life balance’ has improved sincethen. : n )"
In 1986,Kare followedSteve Jobsin leaving Apple to launchNeXT, Inc.as its Creative Director and 10th employee.She introduced Jobs to her design heroPaul Randand hired him to design NeXT's logo and brand identity, admiring his table-pounding exactitude and confidence.She created and re-created slideshows to Jobs's exacting last-minute requirements.
She realized that she wanted "to be back doing bitmaps"so she left NeXT to become an independent designer with a client base including graphical computing giantsMicrosoft,IBM,Sony Pictures,Motorola,General Magic, andIntel.Her projects for Microsoft include the card deck forWindows 3.0'ssolitairegame,which taught early computer users to use a mouse to drag and drop objects on a screen. In 1987, she designed a "baroque" wallpaper,numerous other icons, and design elements for Windows 3.0,usingisometric 3Dand 16ditheredcolors.Many of her icons, such as those forNotepadand variousControl Panels, remained essentially unchanged by Microsoft untilWindows XP. For IBM, she produced pinstriped isometric bitmap icons and design elements forOS/2.For General Magic, she madeMagic Cap's "impish" cartoon of dad's office desktop.She was a founding partner of Susan Kare LLP in 1989.ForEazel, she rejoined many from the former Macintosh team and contributed iconography to theNautilus file managerwhich the company permanently donated to the public for free use.
In 2003, she became a member of the advisory board of Glam Media, now calledMode Media.In 2003, she was recommended byNancy Pelosias one of four appointments to theCitizens Coinage Advisory Committeefor designing coins for theUnited States Mint.
Between 2006 and 2010,she produced hundreds of64 × 64 pixelsicons for the virtual gifts feature ofFacebook.Initially, profits from gift sales were donated to theSusan G. Komen for the Curefoundation untilValentine's Day2007.One of the gift icons, titled "Big Kiss" is featured in some versions ofMac OS Xas a user account picture.
In 2007, she designed the identity, icons, and website forChumby Industries, Inc.,as well as the interface for its Internet-enabled alarm clock.
Since 2008,The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) store inNew York Cityhas carried stationery and notebooks featuring her designs.
In 2015, MoMA acquired her notebooks of sketches for the original Macintosh user interface.
In August 2012, she was called as anexpert witnessby Apple in the patent-infringement trialApple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co..
In 2015, Kare was hired byPinterestas a product design leadas her first corporate employment in three decades.Working with design manager Bob Baxley, the former design manager of the originalApple Online Store, she compared the diverse and design-driven corporate cultures of Pinterest and early 1980s Apple.In February 2021, Kare became Design Architect atNiantic Labs.As of 2022, she concurrently heads a digital design practice in San Francisco and sells limited-edition, signed fine-art prints.
Kare's design principles are meaning, memorability, and clarity.She echoes the advice ofPaul Rand, "Don't try to be original, just try to be good".She focuses on simplicity in creating visual metaphors for computer commands.Designing for the fullest range of users from novice to expert, she believes that the most meaningful icons are instantly easy to both understand and remember.She said "an icon is successful if you could tell someone what it is once and they don't forget it."She said "good icons should function somewhat like traffic signs—simple symbols with few extraneous details, which makes them more universal"and notes that there is no impetus to continuously modernize astop sign.Using the same philosophy through the pixel art era and beyond, she has placed a "premium on context and metaphor", hunting the streets of San Francisco for inspiration from "catchy symbols and shapes".When stuck on a design, she resourced inspiration from the booksKanji Pictogramsfor its table of the real-world origins of Japanese characters, andSymbol Sourcebook,especially its reference forhobo graffiti.
Her primary objective with the Macintosh was to humanize it, make it seem less like a machine, and give it "a smile".She intended to bring "an artist's sensibility to a world that had been the exclusive domain of engineers and programmers" and "hoped to help counter the stereotypical image of computers as cold and intimidating".Her Macintosh icons were inspired by many sources such asart history, wacky gadgets, pirate lore, Japaneselogograms, and forgottenhieroglyphics.On the Mac keyboard, her concept for the command symbol was taken from theSaint Hannes cross, which is a symbol for a place of cultural interest used by Scandinavians of the 1960s such as at Swedish campgrounds.
She thrived in the problem-solving approach to severe technological constraints of the 1980s,drawing heavily upon her fine art experience inmosaics,needlepoint, andpointillism.Considering32 × 32 pixelsto be generous for icons, this improvised mastery of "a peculiar sort of minimal pointillism"made her an early pioneer ofpixel art. For example, her original fonts are constrained to9 × 7 pixelsper character, yet she solved the problem of the typical jagged look of existing monospaced computer typefaces by using only horizontal, vertical, or 45-degree lines.Veteran designers at Apple had previously thought it impossible to convey personality and accuracy in a human portrait of only32 × 32 pixelsuntil Kare did it.
Since the late 1980s, she usesAdobe PhotoshopandAdobe Illustratorusing a grid-like template to simulate the constraints of the target device and user experience.She has said that she would still prefer16 × 16 pixelmonochrome pixel art.
TheSmithsonian Institutioncalled her design language "simple, elegant, and whimsical".In 2015, theMuseum of Modern Artexhibited the first physical representation of her iconography, including her original Grid sketchbook,saying "If the Mac turned out to be such a revolutionary object––a pet instead of a home appliance, a spark for the imagination instead of a mere work tool––it is thanks to Susan's fonts and icons, which gave it voice, personality, style, and even a sense of humor. Cherry bomb, anyone?"They called her "a pioneering and influential computer iconographer [whose icon designs] communicate their function immediately and memorably, with wit and style."TheAmerican Institute of Graphic Artscharacterized her style as a "whimsical charm and an independent streak" with an "artistic sleight of hand" and awarded her with its medal in April 2018.In October 2019, Kare was awarded theNational Design Awardfor Lifetime Achievement byCooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.OnInternational Women's Dayof 2018,Mediumacknowledged Kare as a technologist who helped shape the modern world alongside programmerAda Lovelace, computer scientistGrace Hopper, and astronautMae Jemison.
In 1997,I.D.magazinelaunched its I.D. Forty list of influential designers including Kare and Steve Jobs.In October 2001, she received theChrysler Design Award.
Susan Kare is considered a pioneer ofpixel artand of thegraphical user interface,having spent three decades of her career "at the apex of human-machine interaction".
In co-creating the originalMacintoshcomputer and documentation, she drove the visual language for Apple's pioneering graphical computing. Her most recognizable and enduring works at Apple include the world's first proportionally spaced digital font family of theChicago,Geneva, andMonacotypefaces, and countless icons and interface components such as the Lasso, the Grabber, and the Paint Bucket.Chicago is the most prominent user-interface typeface seen inclassic Mac OSinterfaces fromSystem 1in 1984 toMac OS 9in 1999, and in the first four generations of theiPodinterface. This cumulative work was key in making the Macintosh one of the most successful and foundational computing platforms of all time. Descendants of her groundbreaking 1980s work at Apple are universally seen throughout computing and in print.
For decades, she seeded this visual language practice throughout the industry via industry giants such asMicrosoft Windows,IBM OS/2,Facebook, andPinterest.
Her icon portfolio has been featured as physical prints in theNational Museum of American History, theMuseum of Modern Art(MoMA), theSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and theNew Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Her work has acult following, and large print versions of her digital portfolio are sold privately and at MoMA.
She was married to Jay Tannenbaum. Their marriage was dissolved in 2011.She has three sons with him.Her brother was aerospace engineerJordin Kare.