SusanKare
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Susan Kare likes iOS 7's icons
Susan Kare may not be a household name, but her work has likely graced your computer at some point in time. Though she is best known for her icon design work on the original Apple Macintosh computer, she has also designed icons for other well-known companies like PayPal, Facebook and Microsoft. As a pioneer in the field of computer iconography, it's not surprising that Kare would have her own opinion about the UI changes in iOS 7. When asked by NetworkWorld what she thought about this new look and feel, Kare was upbeat and said: Generally a good direction -- am a fan of simple, meaningful symbols that fill a space, such as Music and Weather. It's better -- more iconic, less illustrative. Her response is far better than some of her contemporaries, who have been critical of iOS' new look calling it "immature" as well as "ugly, poorly balanced and of an unattractive color palate." Whether you like the new look or not, it's safe to say that this is a topic that will continue to generate controversy as iOS moves through its beta stage and onto its final release.
Macintosh icon designer talks about her work at Apple
Path has a nice interview with Susan Kare, a graphic designer and creator of the original Macintosh icons and typefaces that so many of us are familiar with. Kare reveals that she first came to work at Apple with the title "Macintosh Artist." She got the job through a high school friend, Andy Hertzfeld, who Apple history buffs will know was one of the inventors of the original Macintosh. When asked how working at Apple informed what kind of artist she is today, Kare said: I was so lucky to get to work in the Macintosh group with great colleagues and talented programmers. That experience introduced me to interface design development and how I might be able to contribute as a graphic designer to the overall user experience. It also gave me practice in aiming to communicate big concepts in small spaces. Kare is currently doing a set of "stickers" for social networking app Path.
Walls360 offers Susan Kare icons for your walls
Walls360 is a cool startup in Las Vegas that makes high-quality (but affordable) wall art. They've got the license to some great properties, like Star Trek, Plants vs. Zombies and a host of children's books, and now they are offering nearly all of the icon artwork produced by famed designer Susan Kare. The company scored some work with Zazzle, but they actually have a higher purpose than just printing other people's stuff. If you think these are merely wall stickers, I think it's important to explain how committed to art the team really is. The team itself is made up of artists, for example. Here's a bit of background: Dave, the on-demand production manager started in art school and wound up being featured on TUAW once upon a time. Vulcan, the on-demand production lead is a legendary aerosol artist who created the Graffiti Hall of Fame in Harlem in the '80s. Chris, director of creative services, co-founded one of the first on-demand wall graphics companies in the world while an undergraduate at UNLV, as did Stewart, who now runs business development. The founders, John Doffing and Tavia Campbell, have 20 years of digital imaging experience. CEO John even ran afoul of App Store guidelines early on in the store's history. So Walls360 is made up of artists and geeks, and I was more than impressed with their on-demand factory for printing these awesome wall art pieces. For those of you attending Macworld/iWorld, we'll have a special giveaway!
Joseph Wain designs near-ubiquitous iOS icons
Chances are very good that almost any iOS app you use contains icons that were designed by one man -- Joseph Wain. Wain doesn't work for Apple and never has. Instead, he's a designer who was impressed at an early age by the work of seminal Apple and NeXT icon designer Susan Kare, but not impressed with early attempts at icon design by many app developers. So Wain sat down and designed Glyphish, a set of "great icons for mobile apps." Glyphish icons are visible in thousands of iOS apps. Wain believes the total number of apps using his icons is near 50,000 and growing. One Twitter user stated that "it's amazing how pervasive @glyphish's icons are in iOS! 2nd only to Apple in influencing look and feel." There's a bit of Kare's heart and soul in Glyphish, with all of the Cairo font dingbats re-imagined for the 21st century by Wain. He's made 200 of the icons available for free under a Creative Commons Attribution license, or app developers can pop $25 for a complete Pro set of 400 icons that come in regular and Retina resolutions. The icon library continues to grow; Wain often makes seasonal or timely icons available for free. Right now, you can download a set of "spooky" Halloween-themed icons from the Glyphish website. The next time you open up an iOS app, see how many Glyphish icons you can find and send your thanks to their creator, Joseph Wain.
Inside Susan Kare's 'iconic' sketchbooks
We've mentioned Susan Kare and her work on the site before, but it's a story that's always worth repeating: She's the woman behind some of Apple's most iconic, well, icon designs. Kare was working as a curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco when her friend Andy Hertzfeld asked her to think about some graphical icons to be used in a computer interface, and as you can see on this great PLoS blog post, she jumped right into the project. In these great images from her sketchbooks, you can see her working on the first proportionally spaced digital fonts used, and then progress up into bitmaps of both famous Mac icons like the Trash Can, the Cmd key, and the smiling Mac. There are even some really great but not used icons like a symbol for "Auto Indent" that actually shows an automobile leaving an indentation in a tree. What amazing work. She has published a book of her work, and you can even get it signed if you buy it directly from her website. Don't forget, too, that not only was Kare designing these icons for the Mac, but this was for the first major computer graphic interface, which means many of the standard icons we know today (the little speaker for audio controls, or the hand on screen for moving things around or even clicking through Internet links, were first originated by Kare and her peers. Really amazing stuff. [via The Mary Sue]
Original Mac OS icons available as limited-edition prints
Long for the good old days of classic Mac icons like Clarus the Dogcow or Pan Hand? Lucky for you -- Susan Kare, the 1983 designer of the original Mac OS icons, is offering prints of the famed icons for Apple fanboys (and girls) everywhere. As reported by The Mac Observer, signed and numbered prints of the Bomb, Spotted Dog, Smiling Computer, Trash and several other icons are available in several sizes ranging from 8.5" x 11" up to 30" x 40" and are priced between US$89 and $499. The limited-edition prints are up for sale over at Susan Kare Prints. Since Ms. Kare was the designer of these icons, she has personal stories to share about each of them. About the Spotted Dog she says, "This icon was designed to be a spotted dog character in the Cairo 'hieroglyphic' font that shipped with the original Macintosh. Perhaps because the spots looked a little bovine, some people referred to the image as a dogcow, and imagined that the sound it made would be 'Moof.'" We've seen some interesting items created in the image of Apple products: an iPhone quilt made by a grandmother, an iPad cutting board and even a giant iPhone wedding cake. Up until 1998, Apple's corporate headquarters had an "icon garden" full of planted OS icon sculptures. Here, courtesy of Ms. Kare, we have the real thing for sale by the designer of the original OS icons. One has to wonder, though, will Apple Legal send out any cease and desist letters to such an important former employee? [via The Mac Observer]
