8 ms·

The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

223 points by oliebol 8y ago

neonate 8y ago
What is the source of these quotes? If it's an original interview, you should say so. If from somewhere else, you should say where and link to it.
- pvg 8y ago
  It doesn't look like it is an original interview. One quote is from here, for instance. https://www.salon.com/2012/01/04/the_architect_of_apple_iconography/ https://www.salon.com/2012/01/04/the_architect_of_apple_icon... Some of the sketches seem to come from the work of the person who wrote the introduction to her book. http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/11/22/the-sketchbook-of-susan-kare-the-artist-who-gave-computing-a-human-face/ http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/11/22/the-sketchbook-...
- ghostly_s 8y ago
  To my recollection having just watched it a few months ago, the quotes and figures are all pulled directly (and uncredited), from the talk she gave at the Layers Design Conference, 2015. [1] Of course she's maybe given this same talk on other occasions but the OP is a shoddy piece of work. The video's worth your time if the topic interests you, she had some other interesting anecdotes about the Apple days and her work after also. Just don't waste your time with John Gruber's Q&A at the end, he wasn't on the same page as her at all. 1. https://vimeo.com/151277875 https://vimeo.com/151277875
  - russellbeattie 8y ago
    Aww! Seems like she lost that fun New York accent she had. https://youtu.be/AY1-UYnaBm8 https://youtu.be/AY1-UYnaBm8
cup-of-tea 8y ago
It's seen on Swedish road signs because it was copied from Swedish road signs. Did anyone really think it might be the other way round?
- macattack728 8y ago
  I don't think anyone is confused that the origin is swedish road signs. to quote from the article: "I was just not sure what a ‘feature’ looked like … so I was thumbing through a symbol dictionary and I came across this symbol (⌘). In the back of the book, it said it was for an ‘interesting feature’ at Swedish campgrounds. I thought it was maybe a little abstract, but it worked."
  - cup-of-tea 8y ago
    The original title of this submission was something like "Why is the Apple symbol seen on Swedish road signs?" It was clearly renamed and now my comment makes no sense.
    - jcahill 8y ago
      It was: What is the Apple ⌘ symbol doing on hundreds of road signs in Sweden?
djsumdog 8y ago
These basic designs pretty much stayed the course all the way through OS 9, and some even in OS X. It's gotta be surreal to think something she designed is on millions of devices. Reminds me of someone I met who wrote video drivers for Intel. It's something small you don't think about, a tiny piece that is essential in bringing the whole thing together. Too often we think about the captains of the ships, the Gates and Bezos and Musks of this world. People attribute so much to them, when all they really did is convince other people with actual skill to make the things they wanted. I doubt Elon could design the engine of a rocket. There are no Tony Starks outside of the movies. There are 60 ~ 150 engineers who carefully design and check each others work. It's like when we see Columbus discovering the new world, even though so many other civilizations had discovered it before him, ignoring all the ships and crews that got him there, and the fact that the new world was named after Amerigo Vespucci, the cartographer who actually mapped it out. There are hundreds or thousands of engineers and designers like this one, who are the people who really make these products real.
- pvg 8y ago
  Gates was quite heavily involved in making Microsoft's early products, long before they had '60 to 150 engineers'. In the case of Jobs, the really enduring mystery to me is that despite some seemingly disqualifying personality flaws, he managed to both surround himself with very talented people and get them to do outstanding work together. Once, you could chalk it up to luck but somehow he did it repeatedly.
  - petard 8y ago
    I found the anecdotes from John Carmack about working with Jobs really interesting in this regard. Apart from being probably very smart Jobs did care a lot about the things they were building, and willing to throw everything overboard if you could convince him that an existing approach was not the right thing to do. It is something many managers or leaders lack IMHO, not willing to do the "right thing" because of politics, market studies or something else.
    - pvg 8y ago
cosmojg 8y ago
For the lazy: the symbol (⌘) has apparently been used at Swedish campgrounds and parks for decades. It's used to denote interesting features, both natural and man-made. It was inspired by the way Swedish castles look from above (a central building with a turret at each corner).
- bowmessage 8y ago
  Also used in Iceland!
- runarberg 8y ago
  Apparently it started being used to denote a place of interest in Finland in the 1950's. Funny enough I have always thought that sign was universal, understood by all culture to mean you can park your car here and see something interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looped_square https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looped_square
  - oblio 8y ago
    There's just few things that are truly universal. One example from somewhat nearby: nodding means "no" in Bulgarian.
    - rusk 8y ago
      I've also met some Indian guys who bob their head when they're in agreement which is very similar to how I'd be used to people I know shaking their heads in disagreement.
      - firmgently 8y ago
        I see that as a kind of figure-of-8 movement... when my friend and I visited India we decided that it was a cross between a nod and a shake ie. ambiguous yes/no, non-committal
  - madeofpalk 8y ago
    I saw it in Iceland last year when driving around. Must be a Nordic/Scandinavian thing
peter303 8y ago
I wonder if graphical user interfaces will become less relevant as natural language, both voice and text, become more capable via A.I. No need then to learn icons.
- nomocrypto 8y ago
  That will happen as soon as natural language isn’t incredibly painful to use with computers (or other humans, for that matter).
  - majewsky 8y ago
    I think it's a pretty safe bet that computer experts (developers, admins, etc.) will be both the first ones and last ones to use GUIs (just like for TUIs).
0xcde4c3db 8y ago
Articles tend to pigeonhole her as an Apple designer, but that sells her influence short; Kare also designed the icons for Windows 3.x and the cards for Solitaire.
netgusto 8y ago
For those who wonder, the uncredited cartoon strip "When you look at a photo or see a realistic face, you see it as the face of another; but when you enter the world of cartoon, you see yourself" is from Scott McCloud's excellent "The Invisible Art" [1]. Cannot recommend it strongly enough; it contains a rich and enlightening analysis of cartoons, and through that of the way we human perceive and communicate using graphics. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/006097625X https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-...
M_Bakhtiari 8y ago
My mother keeps calling the feature symbol "zolbia" for its resemblance to the middle eastern pastry, so whenever I have to help her over the phone I have to tell her to press zolbia-so-and-so instead of command-so-and-so.
jimothyhalpert7 8y ago
> Kare also developed the icons, such as the trash can for discarding files, that helped define graphical interfaces. She and Jobs hit it off because they shared an instinct for simplicity along with a desire to make the Mac whimsical. “He usually came in at the end of every day,” she said. “He’d always want to know what was new, and he’s always had good taste and a good sense for visual details.” Sometimes he came in on Sunday morning, so Kare made it a point to be there working. Every now and then, she would run into a problem. He rejected one of her renderings of a rabbit, an icon for speeding up the mouse-click rate, saying that the furry creature looked “too gay.”
sizzzzlerz 8y ago
I hope she got disgustingly rich from her time at Apple. Her designs were an integral part of making the Mac what it was and is today.
gdubs 8y ago
We couldn’t afford a Mac when I was a kid, but Susan’s icons were one of the primary things that made it stand out as “special”. From the trash can to the fact that it booted up with a smiling Mac icon, instead of the typical stream of bios logs on every other machine of the day.
seshagiric 8y ago
Thanks for introducing me to Milanote

223 points by oliebol 8y ago

What is the source of these quotes? If it's an original interview, you should say so. If from somewhere else, you should say where and link to it.

pvg 8y ago
It doesn't look like it is an original interview. One quote is from here, for instance. https://www.salon.com/2012/01/04/the_architect_of_apple_iconography/ https://www.salon.com/2012/01/04/the_architect_of_apple_icon... Some of the sketches seem to come from the work of the person who wrote the introduction to her book. http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/11/22/the-sketchbook-of-susan-kare-the-artist-who-gave-computing-a-human-face/ http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/11/22/the-sketchbook-...
ghostly_s 8y ago
To my recollection having just watched it a few months ago, the quotes and figures are all pulled directly (and uncredited), from the talk she gave at the Layers Design Conference, 2015. [1] Of course she's maybe given this same talk on other occasions but the OP is a shoddy piece of work. The video's worth your time if the topic interests you, she had some other interesting anecdotes about the Apple days and her work after also. Just don't waste your time with John Gruber's Q&A at the end, he wasn't on the same page as her at all. 1. https://vimeo.com/151277875 https://vimeo.com/151277875
- russellbeattie 8y ago
  Aww! Seems like she lost that fun New York accent she had. https://youtu.be/AY1-UYnaBm8 https://youtu.be/AY1-UYnaBm8

cup-of-tea 8y ago

It's seen on Swedish road signs because it was copied from Swedish road signs. Did anyone really think it might be the other way round?

macattack728 8y ago
I don't think anyone is confused that the origin is swedish road signs. to quote from the article: "I was just not sure what a ‘feature’ looked like … so I was thumbing through a symbol dictionary and I came across this symbol (⌘). In the back of the book, it said it was for an ‘interesting feature’ at Swedish campgrounds. I thought it was maybe a little abstract, but it worked."
- cup-of-tea 8y ago
  The original title of this submission was something like "Why is the Apple symbol seen on Swedish road signs?" It was clearly renamed and now my comment makes no sense.
  - jcahill 8y ago
    It was: What is the Apple ⌘ symbol doing on hundreds of road signs in Sweden?

djsumdog 8y ago

These basic designs pretty much stayed the course all the way through OS 9, and some even in OS X. It's gotta be surreal to think something she designed is on millions of devices. Reminds me of someone I met who wrote video drivers for Intel. It's something small you don't think about, a tiny piece that is essential in bringing the whole thing together. Too often we think about the captains of the ships, the Gates and Bezos and Musks of this world. People attribute so much to them, when all they really did is convince other people with actual skill to make the things they wanted. I doubt Elon could design the engine of a rocket. There are no Tony Starks outside of the movies. There are 60 ~ 150 engineers who carefully design and check each others work. It's like when we see Columbus discovering the new world, even though so many other civilizations had discovered it before him, ignoring all the ships and crews that got him there, and the fact that the new world was named after Amerigo Vespucci, the cartographer who actually mapped it out. There are hundreds or thousands of engineers and designers like this one, who are the people who really make these products real.

pvg 8y ago
Gates was quite heavily involved in making Microsoft's early products, long before they had '60 to 150 engineers'. In the case of Jobs, the really enduring mystery to me is that despite some seemingly disqualifying personality flaws, he managed to both surround himself with very talented people and get them to do outstanding work together. Once, you could chalk it up to luck but somehow he did it repeatedly.
- petard 8y ago
  I found the anecdotes from John Carmack about working with Jobs really interesting in this regard. Apart from being probably very smart Jobs did care a lot about the things they were building, and willing to throw everything overboard if you could convince him that an existing approach was not the right thing to do. It is something many managers or leaders lack IMHO, not willing to do the "right thing" because of politics, market studies or something else.
  - pvg 8y ago

cosmojg 8y ago

For the lazy: the symbol (⌘) has apparently been used at Swedish campgrounds and parks for decades. It's used to denote interesting features, both natural and man-made. It was inspired by the way Swedish castles look from above (a central building with a turret at each corner).

bowmessage 8y ago
Also used in Iceland!
runarberg 8y ago
Apparently it started being used to denote a place of interest in Finland in the 1950's. Funny enough I have always thought that sign was universal, understood by all culture to mean you can park your car here and see something interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looped_square https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looped_square
- oblio 8y ago
  There's just few things that are truly universal. One example from somewhat nearby: nodding means "no" in Bulgarian.
  - rusk 8y ago
    I've also met some Indian guys who bob their head when they're in agreement which is very similar to how I'd be used to people I know shaking their heads in disagreement.
    - firmgently 8y ago
      I see that as a kind of figure-of-8 movement... when my friend and I visited India we decided that it was a cross between a nod and a shake ie. ambiguous yes/no, non-committal
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  I saw it in Iceland last year when driving around. Must be a Nordic/Scandinavian thing

peter303 8y ago

I wonder if graphical user interfaces will become less relevant as natural language, both voice and text, become more capable via A.I. No need then to learn icons.

nomocrypto 8y ago
That will happen as soon as natural language isn’t incredibly painful to use with computers (or other humans, for that matter).
- majewsky 8y ago
  I think it's a pretty safe bet that computer experts (developers, admins, etc.) will be both the first ones and last ones to use GUIs (just like for TUIs).

0xcde4c3db 8y ago

Articles tend to pigeonhole her as an Apple designer, but that sells her influence short; Kare also designed the icons for Windows 3.x and the cards for Solitaire.

netgusto 8y ago

For those who wonder, the uncredited cartoon strip "When you look at a photo or see a realistic face, you see it as the face of another; but when you enter the world of cartoon, you see yourself" is from Scott McCloud's excellent "The Invisible Art" [1]. Cannot recommend it strongly enough; it contains a rich and enlightening analysis of cartoons, and through that of the way we human perceive and communicate using graphics. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/006097625X https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-...

M_Bakhtiari 8y ago

My mother keeps calling the feature symbol "zolbia" for its resemblance to the middle eastern pastry, so whenever I have to help her over the phone I have to tell her to press zolbia-so-and-so instead of command-so-and-so.

jimothyhalpert7 8y ago

> Kare also developed the icons, such as the trash can for discarding files, that helped define graphical interfaces. She and Jobs hit it off because they shared an instinct for simplicity along with a desire to make the Mac whimsical. “He usually came in at the end of every day,” she said. “He’d always want to know what was new, and he’s always had good taste and a good sense for visual details.” Sometimes he came in on Sunday morning, so Kare made it a point to be there working. Every now and then, she would run into a problem. He rejected one of her renderings of a rabbit, an icon for speeding up the mouse-click rate, saying that the furry creature looked “too gay.”

sizzzzlerz 8y ago

I hope she got disgustingly rich from her time at Apple. Her designs were an integral part of making the Mac what it was and is today.

gdubs 8y ago

We couldn’t afford a Mac when I was a kid, but Susan’s icons were one of the primary things that made it stand out as “special”. From the trash can to the fact that it booted up with a smiling Mac icon, instead of the typical stream of bios logs on every other machine of the day.

seshagiric 8y ago

Thanks for introducing me to Milanote