How Susan Kare Designed the Original Mac Icons

Key Insights

• Constraints sparked creativity: 16x16 black-and-white pixels forced innovative design thinking rather than limiting it
• Simplicity enables universality: Simple, detailed icons allow viewers to project themselves onto the design—more powerful than photorealistic alternatives
• Metaphor matters more than accuracy: A simple pencil communicates "write" better than a chrome pen; a clock with a clock is self-referential overkill
• Iteration solves problems: The Happy Mac smile, Chicago font, and Command key symbol all emerged through repeated refinement
• Small teams reach consensus faster: Clear vision requires everyone on the same page—a threshold Susan identified as around 15 people

From Art Major to Mac Iconographer

Susan Kare arrived at Apple with no computer experience. A high school friend, Andy Hertzfeld, worked as a systems software programmer and needed someone to design small symbols and typefaces for a machine still under development. Armed with typographical experience from the Franklin Institute and a PhD in art history, Susan brought library books on typography to her interview—though no one asked about font design.

The first day at Apple, she was shown a crude interface and told: "This is what it's your job to improve." Her mission was clear: make a computer anyone could use without a manual, friendly and understandable.

The Constraints That Enabled Brilliance

Susan worked within severe limits: 16 by 16 pixels, black and white only. Rather than frustration, she embraced these constraints as creative fuel.

Her first font, Chicago, addressed the jagged appearance of on-screen text by using horizontals, verticals, and 45-degree angles to create a tidier feel. Proportionally spaced fonts—a major advantage on the Macintosh—prevented squished M's and oversized I's that plagued earlier displays.

For icons, Susan designed symbols like a lasso for selecting irregular regions and art tools. The watch cursor replaced an hourglass because "we're in the 80s"—a forward-thinking choice. The print icon used ImageWriter-style perforated paper, though Susan later acknowledged too much detail hurt its longevity compared to simpler metaphors.

The Happy Mac and the Bomb: Learning Through Iteration

One of Susan's first assignments was the Happy Mac—a 32x32 icon shown during boot-up to signal that the computer was working. The smiling face came from her memory of a button she received as a teenager; it conveyed "everything is okay" in two pixels.

For redundancy, she also designed an Unhappy Mac for errors—depicted as sick or hungover—assuming no one would ever see it. She also created a bomb icon for total system failure, imagining no user would experience it. Both assumptions proved wrong. One receptionist called Apple worried her Macintosh might explode.

These mistakes taught Susan the power of iteration and the importance of testing assumptions.

The Command Key: Ancient Symbols and Hidden Meanings

The Command key symbol—the four-leaf clover-like mark still on keyboards—emerged from necessity. Steve Jobs objected to too many Apple logos on screen, calling the design an "Apple farm." Susan redesigned the key with an abstract symbol she found in a library book labeled "feature."

Years later, while visiting Sweden, Susan spotted the same symbol on a Gothenburg road sign. A Swedish contact revealed its true origin: Borgholm Castle, a 12th-century ruin on the island of Öland. The castle's aerial view—with four turrets at each corner—strikingly resembled the symbol.

This discovery reinforced Susan's belief that "there's not much truly new under the sun." Humanity has created symbols for millennia: limestone bison carvings 38,000 years ago, Egyptian hieroglyphics from around 3000 BCE, Byzantine mosaics from 320 AD featuring 7-pixel capital heights, and 1760 samplers with 10-pixel bitmap fonts.

The Macintosh's Cairo font, released in 1984, allowed users to combine images with text—essentially emojis before texting existed.

Beyond Apple: Icons for Windows, Facebook, Pinterest, and More

After Apple, Susan designed icons for Windows 3.0 (1990), which introduced 16 colors—a significant leap forward. She deliberately created dithered wallpaper using all 16 colors to avoid the "garish chessboard" look of the era.

For Windows Solitaire, she created an icon for what Slate.com later called "the most-used program in the Windows universe"—a program Susan had to remove from her own computer to avoid excessive play.

She worked with Bill Atkinson on MacPaint, collaborating on icons and patterns. Bill developed an early scanner, which gave them a geisha image from a woodcut Steve Jobs owned. They created control panel animations to communicate changes without text, ensuring international compatibility.

At Facebook, Susan designed a gift-shop system where users could buy images for one dollar and send them to friends. Launching a new gift daily at midnight, the team could predict bestsellers within 15 minutes of sales. Susan learned that "cute trumped everything": teddy bears, heart shapes, and kiss marks outsold luxury items like diamond earrings and Rolexes. Penguins were particularly popular—multiple limited editions sold out immediately. The program lasted nearly four years before Facebook discontinued it to avoid competing with third parties.

For Pinterest, Susan created icons with subtle animation to avoid irritation over time. She also designed logos for companies like Magic Puzzle (jigsaw puzzles with magic tricks), the Pikmin Bloom and Peridot games, and a Ledger crypto wallet with a retro aesthetic.

Lessons from Giants: Paul Rand, Steve Jobs, and Others

Paul Rand

The celebrated designer who created the UPS and IBM logos taught Susan: "You don't need that many fonts; you just have to know how to use them well." When Steve Jobs wanted a design contest for the NeXT logo, Paul Rand refused, famously saying: "You will pay me $100,000, I will do one logo, and you will like it." They did.

Paul advocated for logos that incorporate the product name itself—like NeXT in a cube. He showed restraint with color, and Susan noticed he repeatedly used the same palette (including PMS 354 green). He also said, "Black is the only good color for a car."

Steve Jobs

Steve advised: "Don't tell people something is easy, because then they feel dumb if they can't figure it out. Say it's hard so they can feel smart." He also famously stated: "We're going to remember these days as some of the best of our lives"—a reminder to appreciate the present.

His three early offsite goals were: (1) Real artists ship; (2) It's better to be a pirate than join the navy; (3) Mac in a book by 1986. Susan and programmer Steve Capps took goal two literally, sewing a black flag with a painted skull and crossbones (with a striped Apple as the eye patch) and flying it from the roof in the middle of the night.

On career choices, Steve said: "You can twiddle bits and never make more than $20,000 a year. Or you can be the creative director of a Fortune 500 company." Susan eventually returned to "bit twiddling" because it was in her nature.

Alan Kay

The computer scientist quipped: "Simple things should be simple. Complex things should be possible." This principle of nested hierarchy guided interface design throughout the Mac. He also told Susan: "You could make those fonts because you didn't know you couldn't"—validating her boldness in proportionally spacing fonts.

Other Voices

• Paul Saffo (futurist): "Never mistake a clear view for a short distance." Projects always take longer than expected.
• Susan's father (director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center): "If you hear 'no,' try not to get depressed. You're going to hear a hundred no's, so now you're closer to yes." And: "You can change your situation and have different problems, but you'll always have the same number of problems."
• Andy Hertzfeld: "Never present one thing, because then you hear 'no.' Show a few things so you can ask 'which do you like?'"
• Jean Pigozzi: "Never forget the days when you were making computers out of coconuts and tin cans." And: "Every five years I decide to learn something new."
• Evan Sharp (Pinterest): "Candor is a gift."
• Dennis Hwang (Google): "Don't touch the logo" until it's iconic enough to reimagine.
• Garry Tan: "Learn, earn, or quit."

The Power of Simplicity and Metaphor

Susan's design philosophy centers on salient detail or two—no more. A simple pencil stands for writing better than a photorealistic chrome pen. A school-crossing sign shows two children holding hands without plaid lunchboxes or singing—because extra detail distracts.

When designing an alarm icon for Swatch, she explored options: a simple clock, a "noisy" version, a literal travel alarm. She rejected a clock on a clock as self-referential. Through iteration, she tested elephants, roosters, and bells before arriving at the right metaphor.

The principle applies universally: when you look at a face with minimal detail, people project themselves onto it. Everyone can see themselves in a simple smile. This universality is why simplification trumps specificity in icon design.

Conclusion

Susan Kare's legacy extends far beyond the Macintosh. Her work demonstrates that great design emerges from understanding constraints, embracing iteration, and anchoring decisions in metaphor rather than detail. From 16x16 pixels to Windows, Facebook, and Pinterest, her designs have shaped how billions interact with technology. The advice she gathered—from Paul Rand's restraint with resources to Steve Jobs' reminder to appreciate the moment—reveals that creativity flourishes when talented people collaborate with clear purpose and the humility to learn from mistakes.

---

Original source: Susan Kare: How I Designed the Original Apple Mac Icons

powered by osmu.app