The Woman Behind Apple's First Icons | Hacker News Reader

The Woman Behind Apple's First Icons

priceonomics.com

Does anyone know what Kare did for SGI, as in 'Silicon Graphics'? I had her down as having designed the icons for the 'Indigo Magic Desktop' however there is barely a mention on the web.

For those that can't quite remember, the SGI icons were special in that they were vector rather than bitmap. They were also a lot more classy and polished than any other icons available anywhere else, at the time the SGI desktop was deluxe compared to normal computers, and I thought Susan Kare's work was part of this now forgotten chapter.

Theodore - I reached out and asked her for you. I'll edit her response in here when she replies!

Excellent! Thankyou!

She confirms she worked on the Indigo Magic Desktop (mainly designing icons), but says she can't recall the exact scope of her work: "It was LONG ago but I will see if I can dig it up...sorry not to be able to summon this up!"

Thanks for that!

The SGI icons gave much better feedback with animations when you clicked on them, they had quaint drop shadows, let you know if they were open already and showed if they were links or not. They had so much going for them. Someone, e.g. at Canonical, should revisit this aspect of the SGI desktop and ask Susan Kare to apply her touch to something new yet derived from the SGI work. Just having her name to an Ubuntu desktop would win over design snobs who don't see whatever you get on Linux as 'design worthy'.

Do keep me updated as I still believe everything SGI was the best ever. Thanks!

Her site: http://www.kare.com

Tangentially related: does anybody know whether the icons from the icon garden (http://icongarden.jory.org) still exist?

For those who may not know:

Apple commissioned eight two-dimensional sculptures for its R&D campus front lawn in 1993. Officially, the "icon garden" fulfilled an agreement to have art in Apple's front park (and paid homage to Susan Kare). Shortly after Steve Jobs returned in 1997, he stripped the garden.

As for where the icons ended up: it's anyone's guess! There really isn't any conclusive info on this, and most people fall back on one of three non-definitive theories:

a) They were scrapped. b) They're archived somewhere. c) Chuck Norris.

Some photos:

http://www.quora.com/History-of-Apple-Inc/Where-did-Apples-i...

The answer is d, all of the above. I saw a few still hanging around 1 Infinite Loop last time I was there (September, but no pics, so it didn't happen), and apparently Dogcow is in a Cupertino garage, according to WWDC 2013's Stump the Experts. Also, Chuck Norris.

To clarify, one of the panelists on Stump the Experts said they have (just Dogcow? I don't remember) in their garage, which they used to answer a question about how many pixels are on one of the statues.

If memory serves, it was just Dogcow. But right, it was pretty passive that he had it, and part of the question's answer. Fun night.

The dogcow's name is Clarus.

Thanks for the info. Very cool statues. I wonder if my neighbours would mind a giant mouse pointer on my lawn? Come to think of it, I wonder if my wife would.

I don't think very many folks realise just how much of the look & feel of the early Macs either came from Susan Kare or was inspired by her (in my estimation: almost all of it). She had a real gift for using the limitations of small icons and no colour to produce amazing and evocative art.

In a lot of ways, I miss those old days of large B&W pixels. Kinda like the rules of a sonnet, they enabled artists like Kare to create beauty.

I wondered about the story behind the John Siracusa T-Shirt copyright drama that occurred last year. http://www.marco.org/2013/06/21/hypercritical-shirts2

Does this artist have a connection to that?

It's quite possible.

It's too bad as the original icon was my favorite thing about the shirt. Since a Macintosh was basically my first computer it meant a lot to me.

I still bought the shirt with the updated icon as I wanted to support John and it was still pretty nice.

But I would've loved to have the original icon on it.

Probably; who else could it be?

Always good to read about Kare-related stuff. Working in monochrome and very low resolution is something I think every visual designer should try at least once, if only as an intellectual exercise. It's a bit like trying to write without adjectives or painting without white.

I like Susan Kare's work. But I think the under-rated talent is Keith Ohlfs, who was behind NeXT's beautiful and functional UI and icons, and who later went on to do a lot of other interesting stuff, including the UI for WebTV as well.

I never noticed before that the Sad Mac's frown is asymmetrical. That certainly lends to its unpleasantness.

Does anyone see a cow when they look at Clarus the dogcow? I see a dog all the way.

He has horns and cow spots.

Oh my God, you can't just tell a dog his ears are horns! Also, they are just spots.

"Horns and cow spots!" "Ears and dog spots!" "Horns and cow spots!!" "Ears and dog spots!!"

The effect is probably bigger when you see it in the reduced size.

It's in the article: http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/669/ScreenShot2014-02..., and yes it's way less dog-like (to me) at that size.

Looks like a deer-cat to me.

But when you hear her (http://clarus.chez-alice.fr/Museum/Apple/The.Dogcow.moof.wav), it is a dog or a cow? (that site is great and ridiculous, by the way. It, for example, leads to https://www.flickr.com/photos/37996642651@N01/5641577018 (NSFW))

Wow, you're so right! I never would have heard this classic song had it not been for that site:

https://archive.org/details/MaxGizmo512K

You can find pixel art from Suzan here: http://www.stickaz.com/en/58-susan-kare

Loved them. Thanks for sharing the link.

It's such a romantic story, the early days of Apple and the creation of the imagery that countless News Hacker readers grew up seeing.

I often think to myself "what a time that must have been!". But then I think to myself "I am living in that time right now!". We are always able to start our own romantic story that will be told in the years to come.

Let's go design!

I like almost all of her icons, but I can't stand the command icon. It doesn't obviously relate to its meaning and its difficult to describe in words to someone else. It causes so much confusion. I can see why Jobs didn't want to use the Apple icon any more, but I can't think of an icon I dislike more than what they replaced it with.

I am amazed at the portrait of Steve Jobs, in so few pixels is still recognizable, I think here the true talent shows.

Fantastic Domo icons.

Related to quality icons, I came across a really well drawn icon on Mac OSX in the EasyFind application. I emailed them and asked who drew it and they told me, if only I could remember who he was! I think he was a chap in Canada. Really quality icon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com