Simple is as Simple does: The work of Susan Kare

By Armin Vit
This article was originally published in Experimenta Magazine, April 2005, Spain

As graphic designers and visual communicators we often work with and rely upon metaphors to provide a message that triggers emotions, actions and reactions from an audience. We achieve this through imagery and words. The juxtaposition of strong photographs or illustrations with well-crafted writing allows us to create posters, book covers, brochures or music packaging. These canvases have unlimited possibilities where delivering a metaphor is only limited by our own creativity. In a poster there is size and space to be exploited, in a book cover there is a story to be told, in a brochure there are dozens of pages to portray a product or service, in music packaging there are layers on which to build a whole experience. Now imagine creating metaphors in a space no bigger than the nails on your fingers and with no other color but black – oh, and don’t forget, the metaphors have to be universally recognizable.

In extreme – yet not uncommon – cases, these are the conditions and limitations that Susan Kare works under. As a user interface and icon designer she has taken advantage of the power of the metaphor to create simple, friendly, human and intuitive interfaces for computer operating systems, cell phones, handhelds, web sites, even watches. Strolling through Kare’s icon collections one can find floating mermaids, running rabbits, dangling carrots and fattening trashcans. Perhaps the strongest example is the dreaded bomb icon for the original Macintosh operating system: The computer will certainly not explode, especially with such a quaint-looking bomb, but the sense of imminent danger to the system is clearly portrayed. However, in the effort to create optimal “spaces”, not all is metaphors in her work. Simplification, organization and distillation of elements are qualities always at play – with clarity, simplicity and usability as the goal. “I still believe,” Kare proudly states, referencing Alan Kay, a pioneer of personal computing, “in that old saw ‘simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible’.”

Simple is not as Simple as it Sounds
Simplicity is indeed a running theme in her body of work, even when the projects are anything but simple. Take for instance her first job, dating back to 1983: designing the fonts, icons and look and feel for the Macintosh. For the very first time. With a Master’s Degree and a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from New York University, a deep interest for sculpture and an Assistant Curator position at San Francisco’s Fine Arts Museum, creating computer graphics did not seem to be a logical career transition. “Bitmap graphics are like mosaics and needlepoint and other pseudo-digital art forms,” Kare once said, 1)“all of which I had practiced before going to Apple.” Andy Hertzfeld, one of the leading programmers and creators of the original Apple computer, and a close friend of Kare, hired her for the job. Working on graph paper and a rudimentary icon editor she, in collaboration with the team, developed the system’s first set of icons. Among those were the startup screen’s Happy Mac, the trashcan, the watch, the bomb and the folder, application and file icons. The earliest Mac fonts like Chicago (now revived in Apple’s iPod interface), New York and Geneva were also developed at this time by Kare.

In recalling her experience with that first monumental task, one can get an explicit sense of Kare’s methodology. Most notable is her perseverance in not allowing the medium limit the capacity of her work but to look for ways in which it could be strengthened. The original Apple computer only displayed black pixels, color was not an option then, so she had to exercise vast creativity to make the most of the technology, which consisted of 2)“a grid with squares that toggled from black to white” . Certainly, a lot has changed since the mid-eighties and some of her work is executed in 16, 32 or 256 colors (common color denominations among devices), yet, “the tools,” Kare says “don’t really affect the thought process, but [they] are better,” and she takes advantage of them. “It is really great to be able to use color to add meaning and differentiation,” however, true to form, she adds, “I still think it’s possible to make anything usable and attractive in monochrome, and to use 3)dithering carefully if there is a limited palette. I always love the challenge of trying to convey something economically.”

Also evident is Kare’s resourcefulness of drawing inspiration and ideas from unexpected sources. “All kinds of sources” she says, “trademarks from the past, classic typography, encyclopedias of symbols and diagrams, fine art and folk art.” After trying to find metaphors for the Command symbol – the trigger for most of Apple’s operating system actions – but coming up empty, the decision to create an abstract symbol was taken. Rather than drawing some odd shape, she scoured books and stumbled upon a symbol found in Swedish campgrounds that stood for “Interesting Feature.” This, at least was somewhat relevant and not just an arbitrary choice. And when dealing with concepts like save or undo – or as she calls them, 4)“perennial brain twisters” – every source of inspiration counts.

Life after Apple
In 1985, a year after the acclaimed release of the first Macintosh Steve Jobs left Apple to form NeXT Inc., his own computer company. Kare joined Jobs in the new venture as Creative Director in charge of the new company’s identity. She took this opportunity to commission Paul Rand to design the corporate identity; prior to that instance, Kare was already an admirer of his work, to this day he remains one of her main influences and she is happy to cite his work and books as sources of inspiration. “I remain an ardent fan of Paul Rand” she says, “In addition to being an amazing designer, he was an excellent writer, and, I think, gives evergreen advice about how to approach design problems. His sense of color (and humor), and insistence that design should have meaning also guide me, as well as his advice about presenting work and dealing with clients.”

Shortly after that, in what would seem an audacious move, Kare did contract work for the competition in 1988 to design the outer shell of Microsoft’s Windows 3.0 operating system. Working on Microsoft’s system presented a new challenge: color. Comparing the similarity of the companies, Kare says, “I really enjoyed working for each. Different groups, different design challenges — and, at the time, a difference in the relative roles of marketing vs. engineering,” and adds, “I liked the dramatic new challenges and opportunities that having 16 colors presented.” Another exemplary icon that displays Kare’s trademarks – humor and simplicity – can be found in this project. An icon to manage Windows 3.0 color is portrayed by three crayons, one for each screen color, red, green and blue. Not only does the icon make sense, for some it triggers childhood memories of laying on the floor squiggling away on a piece of paper.

A Career Path Established
Currently, and since 1989, Kare has been operating out of studio she founded, Susan Kare LLP, in San Francisco, California where she continues to work on iconography and user interfaces for various clients. “We work with many types of clients—large and small,” Kare says, “Often we work directly with an engineering organization, and other times through marketing. We try really hard to exceed expectations and add value.” And judging by the list of clients – AT&T, Electronic Arts, IBM, Motorola and Xerox among others – and range of projects – cell phone game graphics and mail applications, Palm applications, watch graphics, icons for various software, even designing a line of cards and journals for the Museum of Modern Art in New York – it is possible to state that value has been added and expectations exceeded. “We are always trying to solve problems for clients,” she adds, “and to provide work that is conceptually strong and well crafted.”

Deservingly, her efforts have not gone unnoticed. She is recipient of the prestigious Chrylser Award – an achievement bestowed on people who have 5) “significantly influenced modern American culture” through design – in 2001, joining the ranks of talented designers known on a one-name basis: Scher, Sagmeister, Mau and, ironically, her old boss – Jobs. Another high honor was her inclusion in the original I.D. Forty by I.D. magazine in 1997. Parallel to these honors, her expertise has been sought by the U.S. Mint’s Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee where she served for a year as a congressional appointee reviewing art for coinage and she sits on the board of a toy company. No small feat for a career built on pushing little squares (the technical term would be pixels) around.

The Push behind the Pixel
Besides metaphorical simplicity, Kare’s work requires adherance to logistical simplicity: small (at times really small) spaces, limited colors and many times an allotted amount of memory on a device. Here, she explains an instance of working on this kind of environment:

“I almost always start with a precise grid of boxes – then just start designing. I never use pencil and paper—always sketch first with a virtual pencil, usually at 100% size. Over the years (to the detriment of my posture and eyesight) I’ve gotten used to liking to draw icons initially at the size they’ll be seen. The great thing about icon design is that it’s so iterative, both in the sense of refining the craftsmanship and refining the concepts.

On a recent project I’ve been thinking about some icons for a small device: voice mail, missed calls, ringer on and off, volume, signal strength, etc. Here are some of the issues:

• Which images are literal and which might benefit from a great metaphor?
• How will they work as a family?
• What symbols might already exist that are good or universally accepted?
• How to avoid strange juxtapositions of phone icons on a phone, or traditional receivers on cell phones?

Then I think about the overall tone of the interface: how much real estate there is, and the actual data that the user will be viewing in addition to the icons as well as the product marketing goals of the client. This leads me to think about the form factor of the icons: detailed, silhouette, colorful, monochrome.”

In some cases, a blank canvas is not provided and her responsibility requires optimizing an already existing interface. “Whenever I get a chance to tackle a ‘before’ I still first look at what would seem to be the most basic improvements: lining up elements, removing gratuitous rectangles, trying to reduce the number of pairs of arrows, using color in a meaningful way,” and adds, “I also still believe strongly that simple, economical symbols work better and more universally than icons larded with detail and that the overall user experience is best when the main functionality is really easy to understand, and more complicated functionality or optional configurations may not be quite as obvious.”

Less is More…and Simpler Pixels, like atoms, are the smallest component of its element – in this case, digital-device screens – they are simple squares that acquire shape and meaning, in rigorous working environments, under Kare’s direction. But regardless of the looming requirements or limitations, one thing can be expected from her work: a simpler, friendlier and better experience. For a career that spans twenty years of technological advancements and changes it is quite commendable to see her work adapt and at the same time retain the boiling creativity that drove her work on the original Apple computer. In a world that grows consistently complicated, designers like Kare remind us that things can be simple, enjoyable and accessible. As Kare herself constantly says: “Keep things simple, use common sense, have empathy for and respect the user.” And that is no metaphor.