Susan Kare in The Point cafe in 2018. Katie Canales/Business Insider
Icon Pioneer
How Susan Kare helped revolutionize user-friendly icons.
By Diana Ruiz | April 09, 2021, 1:50 PM
Susan Kare is an American designer best known for her user-friendly icons and typeface contributions while working at Apple from 1983 to 1986. Kare has revolutionized the way users interact with symbols and icons on every kind of screen from desktop to mobile devices.
Early Life
Kare was born in Ithaca, New York in 1954. Growing up, Kare and her mother enjoyed embroidering together, which led her to immerse herself in the arts, such as drawings, paintings, and 3-dimensional crafts. She later went on to receive a B.F.A. in Studio Arts from Mount Holyoke College in 1975, with an honors thesis in sculpture. Three years later, Kare received her M.A and Ph.D. in Fine Arts from New York University in 1978 with a doctoral dissertation on "the use of caricature in selected sculptures of Honoré Daumier and Claes Oldenburg." After graduating from NYU, Kare moved to San Francisco and worked for an art museum. Her goals included either becoming a fine artist or an art teacher.
Working at Apple
Susan Kare at Apple in 1984. Photograph by Norman Seeff/Medium.com
In 1983, Kare joined Apple Computer, Inc. after receiving a call from an old high school friend. She mainly worked under the title "Macintosh Artist." Her focus was on developing the GUI and designing icons for the first Macintosh computer. She also developed the first ever font for the Macintosh computer, Chicago. Chicago is a sans-serif typeface that was the default system font for all Apple operating systems until it was replaced in Mac OS 8. She later ended up leaving for NeXT in 1986. NeXT was a separate company created by Steve Jobs. At NeXT, Kare was employee #10. Kare worked alongside Jobs as a Creative Director before leaving in 1987.
