Susan Kara is a pioneer graphic designer in San Francisco, California. In 2019, Susan Kara won the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement. The first icon of apple was created by Susan Kara. Susan Kara has laid the foundation for the interaction between people and computers during her several years at Apple. Her work is revolutionary, bringing convenience and relaxation to all people who use computers.
Susan Kara was born in Ithaca, New York in 1954. She graduated from Harriton High School in 1971, obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mount Holyoke University in 1975, and obtained a doctorate degree from New York University in 1978. After graduating from university, Susan Kara moved to San Francisco to work in an art gallery. Susan Kara joined the NeXT Computer Company founded by Steve Jobs in 1986, and founded Susan Kare Design Studio in 1989. For the next 25 years, Susan Kara provided design consulting services to hundreds of clients, including Autodesk, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, PayPal and Pinterest.
When she was very young, Susan Kare like painting and handicrafts. Growing up, she fell in love with art history and dreamed of becoming a world-famous artist. By accident, she joined Apple in 1982. Susan Kara designed graphics and fonts for the original Mac computer. The classic “Happy Mac” icon designed by her also gave Susan Kara the title of “Mac Smile”. Although the technology at that time was limited, the resolution of the display was very low. However, Susan designed many icons in grid pixel style, and clearly expressed their functions. For many users, the icon designed by Susan Kare makes them experience the unique experience of interacting with artificial computers for the first time. Once, when Susan Kare was looking through the international symbol dictionary, an interesting symbol caught her attention. When Susan Kara used it in her newly designed icon, she did not expect it to overlook a castle from Sweden from the sky. She certainly did not expect that this icon, which will be used on the command key of the Mac keyboard, will become one of Apple’s classic symbols. In addition, Susan Kara’s other task is to design fonts for Macintosh. At that time, most characters on the computer were equally spaced, so Kare had to develop the first screen-based proportional space font. Among them, Chicago was used in the original iPod, and it was also one of the important fonts in the early Apple system.
It is no exaggeration to say that Susan Kare’s work occupies a very important position in the history of interfaces and interaction. It was Susan Kara who has added a unique culture to the Apple computer interface. Let users experience the convenience of human-computer interaction for the first time, which has spread to today.
Biblography
Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. 2020. NDA 20 YRS | Q&A With Susan Kare | Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. [online] Available at: <https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2019/09/17/nda-20-yrs-qa-with-susan-kare/#:~:text=Susan%20Kare%20is%20the%20recipient,anyone%20who%20uses%20a%20computer.> [Accessed 29 September 2020].
Susan Kare: The Icon Of Icons Receives Cooper Hewitt’S Lifetime Achievement Award – Typeroom. [online] Available at: <https://www.typeroom.eu/article/susan-kare-icon-icons-receives-cooper-hewitt-s-lifetime-achievement-award> [Accessed 29 September 2020].
The Origin Of The Apple Command Icon – Tested.Com. [online] Available at: <https://www.tested.com/tech/mac-os/461757-origin-apple-command-icon/> [Accessed 29 September 2020].
Edwards, O., 1998. Legend: Susan Kare. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/asap/1998/0223/106.html> [Accessed 23 February 1998].
BROWN, E., 2018. Chicago: The Typeface. [online] Chicago magazine. Available at: <https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/September-2018/Chicago-the-Typeface/>.
