Susan Kare: How I Designed the Original Apple Mac Icons
In a Nutshell
Susan Kare created the original Mac's 16x16 pixel icons and fonts by embracing technical constraints as creative opportunities, designing instantly recognizable symbols like the Happy Mac, command key cloverleaf, and Chicago font that enabled intuitive computing without manuals. Her approach prioritized universal simplicity over detail—using minimal faces and silhouettes so users could project themselves onto icons—and iterated through testing after discovering the bomb error icon frightened users into thinking their computer might explode. The work established foundational principles for pixel art, UI design, and visual communication that influenced decades of interface development.
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Susan Kare worked as an iconographer and designer on numerous tech projects, with her early experience at Apple on the Macintosh group serving as a foundational project. Paul Rand, the celebrated graphic designer who created the UPS and IBM logos, advised her to focus on making things meaningful and memorable, emphasizing that a good idea should come first and form would follow.
Before joining Apple, Kare was welding a life-size razorback hog for a museum in Arkansas, working alone in her garage. Though she enjoyed this work, it was lonely, and she sought opportunities to work with a team. Her high school friend Andy Hertzfeld, a system software programmer at Apple, recognized her art background from yearbook work and contacted her about creating images for a new computer being developed.
Hertzfeld showed her the Macintosh display without a case and asked if she would interview to work on small symbols and typefaces. Kare had some typographical experience from the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, where she used a machine to make exhibit labels and was skilled at rub-down type with proper kerning. Despite having a PhD in art history, she prepared for the interview by checking out typography books and font sample books from the Palo Alto library to appear knowledgeable. Hertzfeld suggested she create bitmap graphics examples using graph paper, and she made various designs including a boot and paper pun, along with other random elements that later influenced the software.
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