Susan Kare

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Susan Kare (born 1954) is an artist and graphic designer who created many of the interface elements for the Apple Macintosh in the 1980s. She was also one of the original employees of NeXT (the company formed by Steve Jobs after leaving Apple in 1985), working as the Creative Director.[1]

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[edit] Background

Kare was born in Ithaca, New York and is the sister of rocket scientist and filker Jordin Kare.[2][3] She graduated from Harriton High School in 1971, received her B.A., summa cum laude, in Art from Mount Holyoke College in 1975 and her Ph.D. from New York University in 1978. She next moved to San Francisco and worked for an art museum.[4][2]

[edit] Apple Computer Inc.

Kare joined Apple Computer, Inc. after receiving a call from her high school friend, Andy Hertzfeld, in the early 1980s.[1][2][4][5] She was Creative Director for Apple from 1982 to 1985.

She is the designer of many typefaces, icons, and original marketing material for the original Macintosh OS. Indeed, descendants of her groundbreaking work can still be seen in many computer graphics tools and accessories, especially icons such as the Lasso, the Grabber, and the Paint Bucket. An early pioneer of pixel art, her most recognizable works from her time with Apple are the Chicago typeface (the most prominent user interface typeface seen in Classic Mac OS, as well as the typeface used in the first three generations of the Apple iPod interface), the Geneva typeface, the Monaco typeface (co-creator), Clarus the Dogcow, the Happy Mac (the smiling computer that welcomed Mac users when starting their machines for 18 years, until Mac OS X 10.2 replaced it with a grey Apple logo), and the symbol on the Command key on Apple keyboards.[2][4]

[edit] After Apple

After leaving Apple, Kare joined NeXT as the Creative Director. She later became a successful independent graphic designer working with clients such as Microsoft and IBM.[4][6] Her projects for Microsoft included the card deck for Windows 3.0's solitaire game,[6][7] as well as numerous icons and design elements for Windows 3.0.[1][2] Many of her icons, such as those for Notepad and various Control Panels, remained essentially unchanged by Microsoft until Windows XP. For IBM she produced icons and design elements for OS/2;[7][8] for Eazel she contributed iconography to the Nautilus file manager.[9]

The Museum of Modern Art store in New York City has begun carrying stationery and notebooks featuring her designs. Beginning February 7, 2007 she has produced icons for the "Gifts" feature of the popular social-networking website, Facebook.[10] Initially, profits from gift sales were donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, for the fight against breast cancer. After Valentine's Day[when?], the gift selection was modified to include new and limited edition gifts that did not necessarily pertain to Valentine's Day.[11]

Kare is currently employed by Chumby Industries, working to create the Chumby device.[12]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Ron Wolf. "The mother of the Mac trash can". San Jose Mercury News. http://www.kare.com/articles/sjmerc.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-15. 
  2. ^ a b c d e Alex Soojung-Kim Pang (2001-02-19). "Interview with Susan Kare". Making the Macintosh. Stanford University. http://library.stanford.edu/mac/primary/interviews/kare/index.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-13. 
  3. ^ "The Monell Connection, Winter 2003" (PDF). Monell Chemical Senses Center. 2003. 9. http://www.monell.org/Newsletters/Monell_Fall03.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-08-13. 
  4. ^ a b c d Janet Tobin (2001). "Designer Susan Kare '75 Gives Pixels Personality". MHC Vista, Summer 2001, volume 6, number 1. Mount Holyoke College. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/vista/0106/kare.shtml. Retrieved on 2007-08-15. 
  5. ^ Hamish Mackintosh (2003-06-12). "Technology: Talk Time". Guardian Unlimited. Guardian News and Media Limited. http://technology.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4688619-110837,00.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-15. 
  6. ^ a b http://www.kare.com Susan Kare's Personal site
  7. ^ a b Laurence Zuckerman (1996-08-26). "The Designer Who Made the Mac Smile". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. http://www.kare.com/articles/nytimes.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-15. 
  8. ^ Craig Bromberg (1997). "I.D. Forty/Susan Kare". I.D. Magazine, Jan/Feb 1997. http://www.kare.com/articles/Images/ID_Magazine.jpg. Retrieved on 2007-08-15. 
  9. ^ Nautilus File Manager
  10. ^ Posts tagged 'Susan Kare' - Webware: Cool Web 2.0 apps for everyone
  11. ^ Jared Morgenstern (2007-02-07). "Give gifts on Facebook!". http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2234372130. Retrieved on 2007-08-15. 
  12. ^ Chumby Industries (2007). "Chumby Corporate Team". http://www.chumby.com/corporate/team. Retrieved on 2007-09-10. 

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Original Macintosh Developer Team
v • d • e
Key figures in the history of Apple Inc.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Kare"
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