Susan Kare

Susan Kare, born 1954 in Ithaca, New York, is the original designer of many of the interface elements for the original Apple Macintosh. She joined Apple Computer in 1983.

Kare is the designer of many typefaces, icons, and original marketing material for the Macintosh OS.

Descendants of her groundbreaking work can still be seen in many computer graphics tools and accessories, especially icons such as the Lasso, the Grabber, and the Paint Bucket.

Her most recognizable works from her time with Apple are the Chicago typeface , the Geneva typeface, the Happy Mac (the smiling computer that welcomed Mac users on starting their machines, until Mac OS X 10.2 replaced it with a grey Apple logo), and the symbol on the Command key on Apple keyboards also known as the Apple key.

Since 1988, she has been a successful independent graphic designer working with clients such as Microsoft and IBM. Her projects for Microsoft included the card deck for Windows 3.0's solitaire game, as well as numerous icons and design elements for Windows 3.0. Many of her icons, such as those for Notepad and various Control Panel applications, remained essentially unchanged by Microsoft until Windows XP.