Susan Kare

Graphic designer and iconographer best known for creating many of the original Apple Macintosh’s icons, bitmap typefaces, and visual interface language; she later worked on interface design for NeXT, Microsoft, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Original Macintosh Icons Made Personal Computing Understandable

Susan Kare, the designer behind many of the original Macintosh’s icons and typefaces, argues that interface graphics should make actions legible without requiring users to learn a technical vocabulary. Working within small black-and-white pixel grids, she used familiar metaphors, selective detail and repeated iteration to create symbols such as the Happy Mac and Command key that conveyed both function and emotional tone. Her broader lesson is that simplicity is the result of identifying the essential idea—not merely removing visual material.

Y CombinatorAug 14, 202614 min read