Susan Kare

Susan Kare is an artist and graphic designer who formerly worked for Apple Macintosh in the 1980’s creating many of the interface elements and typefaces. She started off at Macintosh as part of the design team who created graphics and fonts for the program. Later, she was promoted to a Creative Director in Apple Creative Services working for Tom Suiter, the Director of the organization. Kare is one of the many foundation graphic designers of the original Apple Macintosh company. She exhibited many ground breaking works of art that are still recognizable in the computer graphics tools and accessories of the brand. Her most recognizable works with Apple are the “Chicago typeface seen in the classic Mac OS interfaces from System 1 in 1984 to Mac OS9 in 1999, as well as the typeface used in the first four generations of the Apple iPod.” Also the Geneva typeface, the “Happy Mac” icon (the smiling icon that came on the screen when Mac users would start up their computer) and the Command key symbol on Apple keyboards.

After Apple, Kare went on to work for NeXT as a designer working for companies such as IBM and Microsoft. Some of her designs for Microsoft included the Notepad, the deck for solitaire and control panels. For IBM, she designed icons for OS/2 and contributed iconography for the Nautilus file manage.

As Susan Kare’s life went on she worked for many companies that involved graphical design. Some of the many places are Facebook where she created the “Gifts” feature. She also designed the identity icons and website for Chumby Industries, Inc as well as their internet enabled alarm clock. Recently, Kare was hired to Pinterest as a product design lead. Kare also makes many art images for Kare Prints, a website where she post her work on. She enjoys using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to make her designs and logos now. Susan Kare is definitely keeping up with times, even at 65 years young.