Susan Kare
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Susan Kare ( "care"; born February 5, 1954) is an American artist and
graphic designer A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming ...
, who contributed interface elements and
typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...
s for the first
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
personal computer from 1983 to 1986. She was employee #10 and creative director at
NeXT NeXT, Inc. (later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc.) was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later develope ...
, the company formed by
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
after he left Apple in 1985. She has worked as a design consultant to
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
,
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
,
Sony Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and rec ...
,
Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
, and
Pinterest Pinterest is an American social media service for publishing and discovery of information in the form of digital Bulletin board, pinboards. This includes recipes, home, style, motivation, and inspiration on the Internet using image sharing. Pint ...
. , Kare is employed at
Niantic Labs Niantic, Inc. ( ) is an American software development company based in San Francisco. Niantic is best known for developing the augmented reality mobile games ''Ingress (video game), Ingress'' and ''Pokémon Go''. The company was formed as Niant ...
. As a pioneer of pixel art and of the graphical computer interface, she has been celebrated as one of the most significant designers of modern technology.


Early life and education

Kare was born in
Ithaca, New York Ithaca () is a city in and the county seat of Tompkins County, New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York (state), New York, Ithaca is the largest community in the Ithaca metrop ...
. Her father was a professor at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
and director of the
Monell Chemical Senses Center The Monell Chemical Senses Center is an independent, non-profit scientific research institute located at the University City Science Center campus in Philadelphia. Founded in 1968, it is dedicated to interdisciplinary basic research on the sen ...
, a research facility for the senses of taste and smell. Her mother taught her counted-thread embroidery as she immersed herself in drawings, paintings, and crafts. Her brother was aerospace engineer
Jordin Kare Jordin T. Kare (October 24, 1956 – July 19, 2017) was an American physicist and aerospace engineer who researched laser propulsion. He was responsible for Mockingbird, a conceptual design for an extremely small (75 kg dry mass) reusable ...
. She graduated from Harriton High School in 1971. She graduated ''
summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...
'' with a B.A. in art from
Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States. It is the oldest member of the h ...
in 1975, with an undergraduate honors thesis on mathematics. She received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in fine arts from
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
in 1978 with a doctoral dissertation on "the use of caricature in selected sculptures of
Honoré Daumier Honoré-Victorin Daumier (; February 26, 1808 – February 10 or 11, 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the July Revolution, Revolution of 1830 ...
and
Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known for his public art installations, typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...
". Her goal was "to be either a fine artist or teacher".


Career


Early

Susan Kare's career has always focused on fine art. For several summers during high school she interned at the
Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and a center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and wikt:statesman, statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin ...
for designer Harry Loucks, who introduced her to
typography Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...
and graphic design while she did
phototypesetting Phototypesetting is a method of Typesetting, setting type which uses photography to make columns of Sort (typesetting), type on a scroll of photographic paper. It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publ ...
with "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 the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. FAMSF's combined attendance was 1,1 ...
(FAMSF), as sculptor and occasional curator. She later reflected that her "ideal life would be to make art full-time but that sculpture was too solitary".


Apple

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 friend
Andy Hertzfeld Andrew Jay Hertzfeld (born April 6, 1953) is an American software engineer who was a member of Apple Computer's original Macintosh development team during the 1980s. After buying an Apple II in January 1978, he went to work for Apple Computer fr ...
. In exchange for an
Apple II Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...
computer, he solicited her to hand-draw a few icons and font elements to inspire the upcoming Macintosh 128K, Macintosh computer. However, she had no experience in computer graphics and "didn't know the first thing about designing a typeface" or pixel art so she drew heavily upon her fine art experience in
mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...
s,
needlepoint Needlepoint is a type of canvas work, a form of embroidery in which yarn is stitched through a stiff open weave canvas. Traditionally needlepoint designs completely cover the canvas. Although needlepoint may be worked in a variety of stitches, ...
, and
pointillism Pointillism (, ) is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term "Pointillism ...
. He suggested that she get a grid notebook of the smallest graph paper she could find at the University Art store in Palo Alto and mock up several representations of his software commands and applications. This includes an icon of scissors for the "
cut Cut or CUT may refer to: Common uses * The act of cutting, the separation of an object into two through acutely directed force ** A type of wound ** Cut (archaeology), a hole dug in the past ** Cut (clothing), the style or shape of a garment ** ...
" command, a finger for "paste", and a paintbrush for
MacPaint MacPaint is a raster graphics editor developed by Apple Computer and released alongside the original Macintosh personal computer on January 24, 1984. It was sold bundled with its word processing counterpart, MacWrite, for US$195. MacPaint was n ...
. 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 the
Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...
public library to show her interest alongside her well-prepared notebook. She "aced" the interview and 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 the
Twiggy Dame Lesley Lawson (''née'' Hornby; born 19 September 1949), widely known by the nickname Twiggy, is an English model, actress, and singer. She was a Culture of the United Kingdom, British cultural icon and a prominent teenage model during th ...
-based Macintosh prototype which "felt like a magical leap forward" for art design. She preferred it over the Apple II and 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 embraced
Bill Atkinson William Dana Atkinson (March 17, 1951 – June 5, 2025) was an American computer engineer, computer programmer, and photographer. Atkinson worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990. Some of Atkinson's noteworthy contributions to the field of ...
's existing rudimentary graphics software tools and applications, to toggle pixels on and off and convert the resulting images to
hexadecimal Hexadecimal (also known as base-16 or simply hex) is a Numeral system#Positional systems in detail, positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of sixteen. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using ten symbo ...
code for keyboard input. More advanced graphical tools were written for her by Hertzfeld, and she embellished the flagship application
MacPaint MacPaint is a raster graphics editor developed by Apple Computer and released alongside the original Macintosh personal computer on January 24, 1984. It was sold bundled with its word processing counterpart, MacWrite, for US$195. MacPaint was n ...
'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 standard pixel monochrome resolution for icons. She and Steve Capps sewed a
Jolly Roger Jolly Roger was the England, ensign flown by a piracy, pirate ship preceding or during an attack, during the early 18th century (the latter part of the Golden Age of Piracy). The vast majority of such flags flew the motif of a human skull, or â ...
pirate flag with a rainbow colored Apple logo eyepatch, as the christening brand of the new Macintosh headquarters at Brandley 3, embracing
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
' 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 many
typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...
s and 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 of
graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...
(GUI) computing. She refined Apple's existing iconography and desktop metaphors imported from the Macintosh's predecessor, the
Lisa Lisa or LISA may refer to: People People with the mononym * Lisa (Japanese musician, born 1974), stylized "LISA" * Lisa, stagename of Japanese singer Lisa Komine (born 1978) * Lisa (South Korean singer) (born 1980) * Lisa (Japanese musician, b ...
, such as the
trash can A waste container, also known as a dustbin, rubbish bin, trash can, garbage can, wastepaper basket, and wastebasket, among other names, is a type of container intended to store waste that is usually made out of metal or plastic. The words "r ...
, dog-eared paper icon, and I-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 the
Dogcow The dogcow, named Clarus, is a bitmapped image designed by Apple Inc., Apple for the demonstration of page layout in the classic Mac OS. The sound it makes is "Moof!", a portmanteau of "moo" and "woof". Clarus became the archetype of surreal hum ...
seen in the print dialog box, the Happy Mac icon of the smiling computer that welcomes users at system startup, and the
Command key The Command key (sometimes abbreviated as Cmd key), , formerly also known as the Apple key or open Apple key, is a modifier key present on Apple keyboards. The Command key's purpose is to allow the user to enter keyboard commands in applica ...
symbol on Apple keyboards. Aligned with
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
's passion for calligraphy, she designed the world's first proportionally spaced digital font family including
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
and
Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...
, and the monospaced
Monaco Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...
. 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.
Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
is 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 Magazine ''Smithsonian'' is a magazine covering science, history, art, popular culture and innovation. The first issue was published in 1970. History The history of ''Smithsonian'' began when Edward K. Thompson, the retired editor of ''Life'' magazine ...
'' summarizes 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 since "


After Apple

In 1986, Kare followed
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
in leaving Apple to launch NeXT, Inc. as its Creative Director and 10th employee. She introduced Jobs to her design hero
Paul Rand Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum; August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) was an American art director and graphic designer. He was best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, United Parcel Service, UPS, Enron, Morni ...
and 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 giants
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
,
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
,
Sony Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and rec ...
,
Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...
,
General Magic General Magic was an American software and electronics company co-founded by Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Marc Porat. Based in Mountain View, California, the company developed precursors to "USB, software modems, small touchscreens, to ...
, and
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...
. Her projects for Microsoft include the card deck for
Windows 3.0 Windows 3.0 is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, launched on May 22, 1990. It introduces a new graphical user interface (GUI) that represents applications as clickable icons, instead of the list of file names in its predecessors. ...
's
solitaire Solitaire may refer to: Film and television *'' Le Solitaire'', a 1987 French film * ''Solitaire'' (1991 film), a Canadian drama film * ''Solitaire'' (2008 film), a drama film *''Solitaire'', 2016 Lebanese comedy film with Bassam Kousa *"Solit ...
game, 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, using isometric 3D and 16
dither Dither is an intentionally applied form of noise used to randomize quantization error, preventing large-scale patterns such as color banding in images. Dither is routinely used in processing of both digital audio and video data, and is ofte ...
ed colors. Many of her icons, such as those for
Notepad A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often Ruled paper, ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, Diary, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooki ...
and various
Control Panels Control may refer to: Basic meanings Economics and business * Control (management), an element of management * Control, an element of management accounting * Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization * Controlling ...
, remained essentially unchanged by Microsoft until
Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...
. For IBM, she produced pinstriped isometric bitmap icons and design elements for
OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...
. For General Magic, she made
Magic Cap Magic Cap (short for Magic Communicating Applications Platform) is a discontinued object-oriented operating system for PDAs developed by General Magic. Tony Fadell was a contributor to the platform, Bill Atkinson shows the credits screen on M ...
's "impish" cartoon of dad's office desktop. She was a founding partner of Susan Kare LLP in 1989. For Eazel, she rejoined many from the former Macintosh team and contributed iconography to the Nautilus file manager which the company permanently donated to the public for free use. In 2003, she became a member of the advisory board of Glam Media, now called Mode Media. In 2003, she was recommended by
Nancy Pelosi Nancy Patricia Pelosi ( ; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who was the List of Speakers of the United States House of Representatives, 52nd speaker of the United States House of Representatives, serving from 2007 to 2011 an ...
as one of four appointments to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee for designing coins for the
United States Mint The United States Mint is a bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury, Department of the Treasury responsible for producing coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce, as well as controlling the movement of bull ...
. Between 2006 and 2010, she produced hundreds of icons for the virtual gifts feature of
Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
. Initially, profits from gift sales were donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation until
Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring a Christian martyrs, martyr named Saint Valentine, Valentine, and ...
2007. One of the gift icons, titled "Big Kiss" is featured in some versions of
Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
as a user account picture. In 2007, she designed the identity, icons, and website for Chumby Industries, Inc., as well as the interface for its Internet-enabled alarm clock. Since 2008, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) store in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
has 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 an
expert witness An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...
by Apple in the patent-infringement trial ''
Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. ''Apple Inc. vs Samsung Inc.'' is the general title of a series of patent infringement lawsuits between Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics, Samsung Inc. in the United States Court system, regarding the design of smartphones and tablet computers. ...
''. In 2015, Kare was hired by
Pinterest Pinterest is an American social media service for publishing and discovery of information in the form of digital Bulletin board, pinboards. This includes recipes, home, style, motivation, and inspiration on the Internet using image sharing. Pint ...
as a product design lead as her first corporate employment in three decades. Working with design manager Bob Baxley, the former design manager of the original Apple Online Store, she compared the diverse and design-driven corporate cultures of Pinterest and early 1980s Apple. In February 2021, Kare became Design Architect at
Niantic Labs Niantic, Inc. ( ) is an American software development company based in San Francisco. Niantic is best known for developing the augmented reality mobile games ''Ingress (video game), Ingress'' and ''Pokémon Go''. The company was formed as Niant ...
. , she concurrently heads a digital design practice in San Francisco and sells limited-edition, signed fine-art prints.


Design philosophy

Kare's design principles are meaning, memorability, and clarity. She echoes the advice of
Paul Rand Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum; August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) was an American art director and graphic designer. He was best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, United Parcel Service, UPS, Enron, Morni ...
, "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 signssimple symbols with few extraneous details, which makes them more universal" and notes that there is no impetus to continuously modernize a
stop sign A stop sign is a traffic sign designed to notify drivers that they must come to a complete stop and make sure the intersection (road), intersection (or level crossing, railroad crossing) is safely clear of vehicles and pedestrians before contin ...
. 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 books ''Kanji Pictograms'' for its table of the real-world origins of Japanese characters, and ''Symbol Sourcebook'', especially its reference for hobo 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 as
art history Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...
, wacky gadgets, pirate lore, Japanese
logogram In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chine ...
s, and forgotten
hieroglyphics Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters.I ...
. On the Mac keyboard, her concept for the command symbol was taken from the Saint 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 in
mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...
s,
needlepoint Needlepoint is a type of canvas work, a form of embroidery in which yarn is stitched through a stiff open weave canvas. Traditionally needlepoint designs completely cover the canvas. Although needlepoint may be worked in a variety of stitches, ...
, and
pointillism Pointillism (, ) is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term "Pointillism ...
. Considering to be generous for icons, this improvised mastery of "a peculiar sort of minimal pointillism" made her an early pioneer of pixel art. For example, her original fonts are constrained to per 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 only until Kare did it. Since the late 1980s, she uses
Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc., Adobe for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was created in 1987 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. It is the most used tool for professional digital ...
and
Adobe Illustrator Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor and Computer-aided design, design software developed and marketed by Adobe Inc., Adobe. Originally designed for the Apple Inc., Apple Mac (computer), Macintosh, development of Adobe Illustrator began ...
using a grid-like template to simulate the constraints of the target device and user experience. She has said that she would still prefer monochrome pixel art.


Reception

The
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
called her design language "simple, elegant, and whimsical". In 2015, the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
exhibited 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 hose icon designscommunicate their function immediately and memorably, with wit and style." The
American Institute of Graphic Arts The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) is a professional organization for design. Its members practice all forms of communication design, including graphic design, typography, interaction design, user experience, branding and identity. The ...
characterized 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 the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement by
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum at the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 Smithsonian Institution museums and one of three Smithsonian facil ...
. On
International Women's Day International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on 8 March, commemorating women's fight for equality and liberation along with the women's rights movement. International Women's Day gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive righ ...
of 2018, ''
Medium Medium may refer to: Aircraft *Medium bomber, a class of warplane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Medium'' (1921 film), a German silent film * ''The Medium'' (1951 film), a film vers ...
'' acknowledged Kare as a technologist who helped shape the modern world alongside programmer
Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (''née'' Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), also known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-pur ...
, computer scientist
Grace Hopper Grace Brewster Hopper (; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. She was a pioneer of computer programming. Hopper was the first to devise the theory of mach ...
, and astronaut
Mae Jemison Mae Carol Jemison (born October 17, 1956) is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first African-American woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavou ...
. In 1997, ''I.D.'' magazine launched its I.D. Forty list of influential designers including Kare and Steve Jobs. In October 2001, she received the
Chrysler Design Award The Chrysler Design Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals in innovative works of architecture and design which significantly influenced modern American culture. Chrysler's awards started in 1993 to recognize six designers based in the Uni ...
.


Legacy

Susan Kare is considered a pioneer of pixel art and of the
graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...
, having spent three decades of her career "at the apex of human-machine interaction". In co-creating the original
Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
computer 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 the
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
,
Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...
, and
Monaco Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...
typefaces, 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 in
classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Mac (computer), Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and end ...
interfaces from
System 1 The Macintosh "System 1" is the first major release of the classic Mac OS operating system. It was developed for the Motorola 68000 microprocessor. System 1 was released on January 24, 1984, along with the Macintosh 128K, the first in the Maci ...
in 1984 to
Mac OS 9 Mac OS 9 is the ninth and final major release of the classic Mac OS operating system for Macintosh computers, made by Apple Computer. Introduced on October 23, 1999, it was promoted by Apple as "The Best Internet Operating System Ever", highlight ...
in 1999, and in the first four generations of the
iPod The iPod is a series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices that were designed and marketed by Apple Inc. from 2001 to 2022. The iPod Classic#1st generation, first version was released on November 10, 2001, about mon ...
interface. 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 as
Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
, IBM OS/2,
Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
, and
Pinterest Pinterest is an American social media service for publishing and discovery of information in the form of digital Bulletin board, pinboards. This includes recipes, home, style, motivation, and inspiration on the Internet using image sharing. Pint ...
. Her icon portfolio has been featured as physical prints in the
National Museum of American History The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center is a historical museum in Washington, D.C. It collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and m ...
, the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
(MoMA), the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...
, and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. In 2025, MoMA's
Paola Antonelli Paola Antonelli (born 1963) is an Italian architect, curator, author, editor, and educator. Antonelli is the Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, where she also serves as the founding Director o ...
included over a dozen of Kare's icons (some displayed as original drawings on graph paper) alongside the work of Shigetaka Kurita and Milton Glazer in ''Pirouette:'' ''Turning Points in Design,'' an exhibition featuring "widely recognized design icons ..highlighting pivotal moments in design history." Kare's work has a
cult following A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The latter is often called a cult classic. A film, boo ...
, and large print versions of her digital portfolio are sold privately and at MoMA.


Personal life

She was married to Jay Tannenbaum. Their marriage was dissolved in 2011. She has three sons with him.Susan Kare, Biography
wallma.wordpress.com
Her brother was aerospace engineer
Jordin Kare Jordin T. Kare (October 24, 1956 – July 19, 2017) was an American physicist and aerospace engineer who researched laser propulsion. He was responsible for Mockingbird, a conceptual design for an extremely small (75 kg dry mass) reusable ...
.


See also

* List of Apple typefaces * Typography of Apple Inc. * :Typefaces designed by Susan Kare


References


Further reading

* *


External links

*
Susan Kare. Sketches for Graphic User Interface Icons. 1982–83
audio recording of Kare from ''Pirouette: Turning Points in Design'',
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

Fonts created by Kare
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kare, Susan 1954 births Living people AIGA medalists American digital artists American graphic designers American women digital artists American women graphic designers Apple Inc. employees Artists from Ithaca, New York Artists from San Francisco Facebook employees Harriton High School alumni Interface designers Mount Holyoke College alumni NeXT people OS/2 people Pinterest people Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development alumni