Susan Kare began sketching icons in the early 1980s for Macintosh computer, not knowing that she was at the forefront of an icon-language era. In the ’90s her ‘Happy Mac’ greeted Macintosh users everywhere and many of her designs are still in use today. The MoMA recently acquired some of Kare’s early drawings on display in their exhibition ‘This Is for Everyone.’
MoMA’s blog explains Kare’s process: “Using one box to equal one pixel, Kare designed intuitive icons for various functions a computer user might undertake (for example, a pair of scissors symbolized cutting text). The pictogram icons were designed to be an instinctive language that could be understood and loved by users in many different countries.”
This Is for Everyone: Design Experiments for the Common Good continues at the Museum of Modern Art in New York through January 31, 2016.
Source: designfaves.com