Everyone rushes to name Steve Jobs as the creator of the original Macintosh. But the truth is that he was not alone in such a project. The superior aesthetics of the computer were not limited to the case and accessories; they could also be appreciated on the screen, especially through its icons and fonts. The person responsible for both is Susan Kare, a true master of graphic design whose work has gone far beyond Apple and can be found today on multiple platforms.
At the beginning of the 1980s, computers were intimidating. Very intimidating. Black screens, cursors blinking in an almost alien green, cryptic error messages... the average computer had the profile of a predator with sharp teeth and a three-day hunger, ready to eat novices in one bite.
However, on January 24, 1984, Apple launched its Macintosh computer, and the situation changed. The predator seemed domesticated, even friendly, and it looked great on the desktop. But the magic was on the screen. When you turn on an original Mac, the first thing that appears is a disk icon with a question mark. The message is blunt: "Where is my disk?" The next icon is none other than the smiling Mac, Happy Mac, indicating that everything was fine in the system. The computer spoke, and the user understood without having to check manuals or complete tutorials.
Susan Kare and graphic design
The creator of this extraordinary visual communication between the Mac and its users is Susan Kare. Although her relationship with art and graphic design was already cemented before joining Apple (at the request of her friend Andy Hertzfeld, number one in the development of the original Mac software), Kare admitted over time that she knew nothing about typography.
This mix of audacity and talent quickly showed in all the Mac icons (she only had 900 pixels to work with), and in historical fonts like Chicago (which we saw not only on the Mac but also on the first four generations of the iPod), Monaco, Geneva, New York, Toronto, Venice, Cairo, and Los Angeles. Kare also created Clarus, the 'dog-cow' that occupied the letter z in the Cairo font, and the famous Command key icon, based on an old Swedish symbol. Remember that pirate flag with the skull using the Apple logo as an eye patch? It's hers.
When Steve Jobs's relationship with Apple executives completely collapsed, Kare left the company and accompanied him to NeXT as creative director. There she had the opportunity to meet another design titan, Paul Rand, mastermind behind the IBM logo and NeXT's own logo. Kare later worked on the icons of OS/2 Warp for IBM, the icons of Windows 3.0 (which weren't replaced until Windows XP), the design of cards in the eternal Windows Solitaire, and the icons for Facebook's 'gifts', among other things.
Today we can find almost all of Susan Kare's art for sale thanks to her online store, including hand-painted replicas of the pirate flag. The essence of the original Mac may have had a father, but the humanity it conveyed through its fonts, icons, and entire interface definitely had Susan Kare as mother.
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