Susan Kare: Designing Icons & Graphics For the Original Mac

Video summary

Susan Kare explains how she designed the original Mac’s Chicago font, Happy Mac, and Command key through simplicity and iteration.

At Startup School 2026, Susan Kare recounts joining Apple as an art-history PhD with little computer experience, after her friend Andy Hertzfeld invited her to create Macintosh icons and typefaces. Working within a 16-by-16-pixel, black-and-white limit, she designed Chicago and other city-named fonts, MacPaint graphics, and the Happy Mac startup face for the 128K Macintosh. Kare says simple, memorable symbols work best: too much detail dates icons, as with the printer image, while an overly literal bomb icon once alarmed a caller. She traces the Command key symbol to a Swedish sign and a castle motif, and describes later work for Microsoft, Facebook, Pinterest, and other clients. Reflecting on lessons from Steve Jobs, Paul Rand, and colleagues, she emphasizes meaningful ideas, visual communication, iteration, respecting constraints, and knowing when to move on.

Chapters

1. 0:00Making Things Meaningful and Memorable: Paul Rand’s Advice on Design
2. 1:51How Susan Kare Joined Apple: Andy Hertzfeld’s Macintosh Artist Interview
3. 5:01Designing the Original Macintosh: Kare’s First Screen Changes and MoMA Notebook
4. 6:35A Computer Anyone Could Use: Friendly Design Within a 16-by-16 Grid
5. 8:26Creating Chicago and the Mac Typefaces: Nine-Pixel Text, the First iPod, and World Cities
6. 11:47MacPaint and the First Icons: Bill Atkinson, the Geisha Scan, and Pixel Editing
7. 14:45The Story Behind the Happy Mac: A 32-by-32 Startup Smile for the 128K Mac
8. 17:08Why Simple Icons Work Better: A Pencil and a Clear School-Crossing Sign
9. 18:25The Icons That Didn’t Work: The Bomb Error Symbol and the Watch Cursor
10. 21:23Designing Symbols That Last: Simplify the ImageWriter Icon and Avoid Product-Specific Art
11. 22:39How the Command Key Got Its Symbol: The 16-by-16 Mark and Borgholm Castle
12. 25:20What Ancient Symbols Can Teach Designers: Hieroglyphics, Swatch Iterations, and Windows 3.0
13. 30:18Designing After Apple: General Magic, Facebook’s $1 Images, and Ledger Badges
14. 36:32Lessons From Steve Jobs, Paul Rand, and More: NeXT’s $100,000 Logo and Advice to Show, Not Tell
15. 44:35Lessons From Steve Jobs, Paul Rand, and More: Alan Kay, Apple's Pirate Flag, and Advice on Iteration

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