Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Sketchbook of Susan Kare

Posted by timothy on from the ideas-in-action dept.

theodp writes "The Mac wasn't the first computer to present the user with a virtual desktop of files and folders instead of a command line and a blinking cursor, but it was the sketchbook of Susan Kare that gave computing a human face to the masses. After graduating from NYU with a Ph.D. in fine arts, Kare was working on a commission from an Arkansas museum to sculpt a razorback hog out of steel when she got a call from high-school friend Andy Hertzfeld offering her a job to work on the Mac. The rest, as they say, is UI history. Armed with a $2.50 sketchbook, Kare crafted the casual prototypes of a new, radically user-friendly face of computing. BTW, just in time for holiday gift-giving, Kare has self-published her first book, Susan Kare Icons. So, could computing could use a few more artists, and a few less MBAs?"

13 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. A few less MBAs.... by mevets · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is there any field that couldn't use less MBAs? It is a sort of community service to get the poor critters off the street, but they sure make a mess of things. Maybe we can find them a nice island somewhere.

    1. Re:A few less MBAs.... by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's less about having less MBA, and simply having less people telling actual creators and innovators what to do, and what not to do.

      Our society is going nowhere if our developments and actions are being decided by people who don't understand what the things they're making decisions about.

      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
    2. Re:A few less MBAs.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Sergy Brin, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg... Not an MBA amongst them. Where are these MBAs that know how to run companies?

    3. Re:A few less MBAs.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      "The percentage of top 100 CEOs who earned an M.B.A. decreased from 37% in 2003 to 36% in 2004, to 35% this year [2005]. The percentage of all S&P 500 CEOs who have an M.B.A. has increased from 37% to 39% over the past two years."

      content.spencerstuart.com/sswebsite/pdf/lib/2005_CEO_Study_JS.pdf

      There are a lot of MBAs who successfully run large corporations, but I realize that its fun to hate on them here.

    4. Re:A few less MBAs.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm no fan of Bill Gates, but he did write the original Microsoft BASIC back in the mid 1970s, and fit it in 4K, the first person do do such a thing. Now, lots of people could do it, but then, with the tools and knowledge of the day it was quite a feat. He's certainly a software engineer, and a notable one at that.

      I like to make fun of web app developers too. But in reality it is real software engineering, often with a greater variety of skills needed than classic programming. Not for the simplest web sites, but certainly for something like a social app.

      I agree they are scumbags, but they are successful company founding software engineer scumbags.

  2. So not everybody who did well dropped out... by fantomas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So not everybody who did well dropped out: a PhD in art history as well as a maker (her PhD thesis title "A study of the use of caricature in selected sculptures of Honore Daumier and Claes Oldenburg").

    Nice to know it's possible to balance the two, it will make some of my PhD student friends very happy indeed :-)

  3. Plato was the inspiration by dak664 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Plato IV protoypes used a plasma panel with touch screen in the late '60s, and had downloadable characters you could point to to activate different functions. Not a far reach to make those program and folder icons.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)

  4. Do you realize who this is? by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative

    Susan Kare is very well known in the visual design world. She is the world's leading icon designer. Not only did she do the icons for the Mac, she did some of the icons for Windows. And Autodesk products. And PayPal. And Facebook.

    (If the Linux crowd had someone that good, Linux on the desktop would probably be a success by now.)

    1. Re:Do you realize who this is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      She did the icons for Nautilus too.

    2. Re:Do you realize who this is? by brantondaveperson · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You know your mouse pointer? You know, the one that changes to indicate what actions are available depending on what you're pointing at? They're icons too. Icons also take up significantly less space in a toolbar than text, and are much faster for the human eye to recognise. The world of icons is not restricted to what litters your desktop.

      Also real work does not always == coding. Icons indicating which tool you have selected in photoshop (for instance) are most definitely used for 'real work'.

  5. Re:Aha by Compuser · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I do not know why I got marked as flamebait. I clearly stated it was my personal opinion and I meant every word without intent of inciting a flamewar. Mods are on crack.
    That said, to me the ideal design of GUI so far has been Windows 95, with toolbar autohide. Horrible OS but imho best GUI ever. Clean, simple, rectangular without the horrible rounded corners. Grey background, forgettable fonts, and equally neutral pointer shapes.
    I have always hated icons and preferred text instead but I have yet to see a GUI with labels instead of pictures by default. Other than that - Windows 95 got most things right.

  6. Re:wrong by GrahamCox · · Score: 4, Informative

    No. You cannot compare it with anything that "was just around the corner" - it didn't exist yet. I don't recall AmigaOS being much ahead of the Mac (not "Mac OS", it wasn't called an OS for another 10 years), though it did have some nice features and eventually, some nice tools. Apart from Smalltalk, on which you might have a point, none of those other things would have been usable on a 68000 processor. It's questionable whether any sort of OOP runtime could have run on it. You could argue that the CPU was too small for the job, but the software was well tailored to the architecture they chose, for better or worse. The point is, it was a very productive way to program for a while. I'm not saying it was anywhere near perfect, but calling it a piece of shit is to judge it by the standards of today, not 1984.

  7. Re:Icons by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

    She was the first person to design icons ever?

    With the death of Steve Jobs, I believe we are going to see more early Mac artifacts like this one begin to emerge, forming the framework for what will be the fastest growing religion of the coming decade. File this one under, "Mac Nativity". Sketchbooks of ur-icons. Alchemical workbooks for the transmutation of blinking amber cursors into personal computers. Into the Macintosh.

    Do you remember the articles that came out every day after his death for more than two weeks? "The Last Words of Steve Jobs". "The Death of Steve Jobs" by his sister. "What Steve Jobs said about (cultural item here)". "The Early Days of Steve Jobs", "Steve Jobs the Lost Years", "Steve Jobs on the Road to Damascus" and "Steve Jobs rides into Jerusalem on the Back of an Ass". His great sacrifice of his own health so the Company can bring forth the iPhone 4S. His vision, his time in the wilderness and his rise and ultimate ascension. It's as predictable as the Perseids: this is the first 21st century faith. He even knocked the trial of the killer of that other mythical figure, Michael Jackson, out of the headlines for a solid month. Television programming was interrupted to make the solemn announcement. No mere text crawl could be sufficient.

    I'm setting the over/under on the first miracle performed in Steve Jobs' name at October, 2012.

    I am not joking.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.