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What a wonderful article! I have always loved Susan’s work, particularly the dogcow — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow

What a wonderful article! I have always loved Susan’s work, particularly the dogcow — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow — and her bitmap fonts — http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=World_Class_Cities.txt&sortOrder=Sort+by+Date&author=Susan+Kare http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...

fairpx 8y ago
Wonderful article and inspiring person! I recently came across this talk of her, and highly recommend watching it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlb77dDHIXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlb77dDHIXQ she explains a bit about the history of her work. One of the main reasons I find her so inspiring is that her work clearly shows why adding a great designer to a great team of engineers can result in ever lasting impact. As a designer myself, I work with teams of engineers (mostly in the B2B SaaS Space [1]) who write great software but don't have the skills to design a delightful experience for their users. It's a shame there are still too many teams of talented engineers out there who don't see the importance of great design. [1] http://fairpixels.pro http://fairpixels.pro
- jcadam 8y ago
  Indeed. I'm a software engineer in the defense industry, and there has never been budget for a designer on any contract I've worked on. So you end up with interfaces designed by engineers who hate doing UI work. Which is how you get big panels of identical gray buttons and layouts that make no sense (or put another way, some of these government systems make the Eclipse IDE look like the work of a UI/UX genius). Also, some of the more recent and publicly embarrassing incidents of UI-driven operator error :) A few times I've said (well, not these exact words), "Give that UI to me, I may not be a professional designer or even an experienced front-end developer, but at least I care about making something usable." I was actually told once that I had to scrap my interface and re-do it, because it made the rest of the product look bad by comparison. As an aside, I think you provide an obviously valuable service, wish I had come across it before I had done the UI for my current project :)
joezydeco 8y ago
I have an original paper copy of TN31 that I will cherish forever. You can also own your very own Dogcow, signed by Susan. https://kareprints.com/spotted-dog-on-green/ https://kareprints.com/spotted-dog-on-green/
aeorgnoieang 8y ago
The Wikipedia article about dogcow states that someone else made it: > 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] HCI engineer Annette Wagner made the decision to use that dog as a starting point, editing it and creating a larger version with spots to be more suitable for demonstrating various printing options. The new dog graphic had a more bovine look. It claims that Susan Kare made the dog icon but Annette Wagner made dogcow based on it.
- hypertexthero 8y ago
  Indeed — thank you for the correction. I like both Susan’s spotted dog and Annette’s dogcow!
- kevinslashslash 8y ago
  I got the impression that the dogcow was essentially a mistake, like stretching 4:3 to 16:9. The changes were intentionally (and manually) done to better fit with Page Setup, but it not intended to look like a cow or dogcow hybrid. I don't have any sources though, just something I think I read many years ago.
ravishi 8y ago
Really cool article. Such a pity, tho, I found the earlier names way better.

fairpx 8y ago

Wonderful article and inspiring person! I recently came across this talk of her, and highly recommend watching it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlb77dDHIXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlb77dDHIXQ she explains a bit about the history of her work. One of the main reasons I find her so inspiring is that her work clearly shows why adding a great designer to a great team of engineers can result in ever lasting impact. As a designer myself, I work with teams of engineers (mostly in the B2B SaaS Space [1]) who write great software but don't have the skills to design a delightful experience for their users. It's a shame there are still too many teams of talented engineers out there who don't see the importance of great design. [1] http://fairpixels.pro http://fairpixels.pro

jcadam 8y ago
Indeed. I'm a software engineer in the defense industry, and there has never been budget for a designer on any contract I've worked on. So you end up with interfaces designed by engineers who hate doing UI work. Which is how you get big panels of identical gray buttons and layouts that make no sense (or put another way, some of these government systems make the Eclipse IDE look like the work of a UI/UX genius). Also, some of the more recent and publicly embarrassing incidents of UI-driven operator error :) A few times I've said (well, not these exact words), "Give that UI to me, I may not be a professional designer or even an experienced front-end developer, but at least I care about making something usable." I was actually told once that I had to scrap my interface and re-do it, because it made the rest of the product look bad by comparison. As an aside, I think you provide an obviously valuable service, wish I had come across it before I had done the UI for my current project :)

joezydeco 8y ago

I have an original paper copy of TN31 that I will cherish forever. You can also own your very own Dogcow, signed by Susan. https://kareprints.com/spotted-dog-on-green/ https://kareprints.com/spotted-dog-on-green/

aeorgnoieang 8y ago

The Wikipedia article about dogcow states that someone else made it: > 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] HCI engineer Annette Wagner made the decision to use that dog as a starting point, editing it and creating a larger version with spots to be more suitable for demonstrating various printing options. The new dog graphic had a more bovine look. It claims that Susan Kare made the dog icon but Annette Wagner made dogcow based on it.

hypertexthero 8y ago
Indeed — thank you for the correction. I like both Susan’s spotted dog and Annette’s dogcow!
kevinslashslash 8y ago
I got the impression that the dogcow was essentially a mistake, like stretching 4:3 to 16:9. The changes were intentionally (and manually) done to better fit with Page Setup, but it not intended to look like a cow or dogcow hybrid. I don't have any sources though, just something I think I read many years ago.

ravishi 8y ago

Really cool article. Such a pity, tho, I found the earlier names way better.