Susan Caire - the main woman in the history of Apple. Part 1: Before and during the time Apple

She worked on the design in the Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Paypal. She gave Macintosh «smile." She created many wonderful icons. Yes, and it itself It can be considered a design icon. Nice to meet you, Susan Kare - one of the few women to Apple.

Susan loved to draw since childhood and with his head went into this occupation. When Susan grew up, it became clear that it is serious in its intention to turn the childhood hobby into something more than that: it is not delved into the study of art history and dreamed of becoming a good, and the world-famous artist.

Perhaps because it would have turned out the Picasso of our time, but fate decided otherwise, giving her a canvas size of 1024 pixels... In 1982, a chance meeting with an old friend, Apple employee, turned that CARE started working in a new space for itself - the computer. Well, what if the computer it was not really "you", and experience with digital design, she did not exist. This did not prevent Cair arrange pixelated art revolution.

For many icons Susan Kare was the first experience of human-computer interaction: These icons are available for understanding, kind and simple as their author. Today, many of these small pictures - bomb, brush, mini-stopwatch, sobakorova (dogcow) - as the old pixelated friends.

How it all began?

Graphical user interface

Advertisement Apple Macintosh in 1984 (Macintosh 128k):

When Apple launched the Macintosh in 1984, it has positioned it as a simple graphical interface and comfortable - but to create it, Apple had to build a long chain of innovations in the computer field.

As for pixel art, it was not a pioneer. In the early 1970s, Xerox PARC created the personal computer Alto, which was equipped with a raster-screen menu - it was the first computer to integrate a graphical interface. It was followed by Star in 1981, which were elementary icons. It turns out, Xerox PARC came up with "pixel art".

Icons in the Xerox 8010 Star (1981):

Just ten minutes of viewing the user interface Xerox Jobs enough to say: "One day, all the computers will work like this." And I set to work.

Early design MacSketch (later MacPaint):

The Lisa computer icons were mainly based on those that were at Xerox. And would not they have their own, beautiful and original, if the company did not come to work in 1982 by Susan Kare.

Early Macintosh advertisement from Susan Kare, 1983:

Jobs at Apple

In 1978, CARE received his PhD in design, graduating from New York University. You have just read the title of her thesis: "Investigation of the use of cartoons as an example of individual sculptures Honoré Daumier and Claes Oldenburg "- it clearly indicates the purpose of Cair at the time:" to become a fine artist or teacher. " She took hold of the curatorial work at the Museum of Fine Arts San Francisco, and by the early '80s was in Palo Alto for work.

Meanwhile, under the leadership of Jef Raskin (Jef Raskin) Apple Macintosh nursed on the development plan, "easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average user." When the task was given to the designers in 1982, a system programmer and member of the design team, Andy Hertzfeld (Andy Hertzfeld) already knew the candidate.

Herzfeld, who a year earlier had been transferred from the Apple II team in the Macintosh team at the behest of Steve Jobs, he was a classmate of Susan Kare - the two had known each other for 14 years. When he learned that she was in the same city, then called her. CARE says: "Andy and maintained friendly relations after school, and I knew that he was addicted to computers. He showed me a very "raw» Macintosh and said that the computer needs to chart. He knew that I was interested in the subject of painting and drawing, and that, if you give me a millimeter paper, I can draw a little picture of the squares that he could pass on the screen computer. This work seemed great. I did it in exchange for the Apple II, but in fact I did not use the Apple II for graphics on the Mac ».

Here is an outline of the old tetrad Cair.

Pointing a finger, which is used later for the command "Paste":

Scissors - for the team, "Cut":

Brush - used in MacPaint:

Two early design for the «Jump» program team:

Boot:

Cair subsequently offered a job with a fixed time, part-time. The work was to develop a design fonts and icons for Apple Macintosh; on her business card it was written «Macintosh Artist». She had never worked with computer graphics to Apple, but quickly made progress, to adapt to the new environment. "According to my recollection, I did not know anything about digital printing, but I mastered so many books about it as I could."

Kara found that pixelated art gone far from other art forms, some of which date back thousands of years: "I still joke that nothing new already impossible to create, and raster images like a jigsaw puzzle, on crochet and other pseudo-digital art forms - all of them I practiced to work Apple. I have not had any experience with a computer, but I have had experience in the field of graphic design. "

When she started to work on the Macintosh was the editor of icons. But Hertzfeld soon developed an icon editor that will automatically generate a hexagon icon. Thus, CARE was able to focus on creative work, and not on the technical aspects.

Usually, according to CARE, the team told her what concepts they needed, and she in turn reflected on the choice of elements. Inspiration for his early icons she drew from a wide range of sources - the history of art, strange gadgets and forgotten characters.

In its concept for the "command" key beaten cross Saint Hannes, who was originally a symbol for the "sights" in 1950 Finland, then a road sign in Scandinavia, and later was used in Sweden as a pointer to an interesting feature or attraction in camp. And to this day the icon adorns the keyboard of Apple computers.

Icons for the first Macintosh computers:

Bomb to indicate a system error:

Before Care has also been tasked with creating new sets of fonts for Macintosh. While most digital fonts are monospaced (narrow and wide characters have been flattened under the same raster space); Care had to implement the first proportional-diversity font. She describes her process: "I started with Chicago, were on New York, Geneva, Monaco, Cairo, San Francisco and Toronto. Since the Macintosh initially walked in a pair with a matrix printer ImageWriter, I have created a family of bitmap fonts that have been made so that yglyadet smooth printing. "

Fonts CARE:

Years later, in his now famous Stanford introductory speech, Jobs said: "Mac ever would not have had so many fonts, typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, "if the calligraphy course in college Reed. Although CARE never heard him mention it during her work on the design, but said that Jobs was very picky to detail future fonts:

"I've learned never to show Steve something with a question:" Do you like it, "because he always replied in the negative?. He wanted you to work on it more and do better. The only workaround was - to come up with several options and ask him what he likes.

One of these options was the font Cairo, which CARE has developed as a "set of funny modern characters." font set consists of images - from the palm to the gun, the purpose of its creation was to provide an easy way for users to combine images with text.

Sobakorova:

Perhaps the most famous of the characters became a dog-cow Klerus, funny dog, which was originally mistaken for a cow. Klerus eventually became the cult character.

From the Apple Care it was not just a good worker, but also a pleasant colleague. Andy Hertzfeld recalls her "quirky sense of humor" in the office. One of her works, which manifested itself most clearly its character, was a portrait of Jobs. Herzfeld said: "One day I went to her workplace to see what she was working on, and I was surprised to see her carefully which draws a tiny portrait of Steve Jobs. Icons were the size of 32 × 32, 1024 black and white pixels in total, and I did not think it could be done very good portrait in such a tiny space, but Susan somehow managed to create an instantly recognizable similarity with a mischievous smile Steve. Everyone who saw this picture, I liked it - even to Steve.

She made a few portraits of other members of the team working on the Mac, which wished to be immortalized in a thousand points. She usually worked on them at the end of the day, chatting with the characters as they posed, while other members of the team listened. I found several of my teammates a lot better after the sessions. "

Recognizable image of Steve Jobs:

Hertzfeld also reminds one of the earliest manifestations of Cair abilities.

In 1983, Steve Jobs shared with the Macintosh team their thoughts. "It is better to be a pirate than to serve in the Navy," - he said, looking around the small but revolutionary-minded group. In the same year, a growing team of 80 people moved to larger office space (and less original design). Feeling that the space does not reflect the Mac culture, CARE has decided to revive the whimsical spirit of the company: the young designer sewed a flag with a picture of a member of the team named Steve Capps, and added a huge skull with crossbones (and on an eye patch wearing the rainbow Apple logo), and install it on the roof company.

The flag has become a permanent fixture on the building and a symbol of the team stability.

Years later Cair will be one of several creative directors in the Creative Services at Apple. When Jobs was forced out of Apple in the mid-80s, he founded NeXT and brought with him a number of former members of the Macintosh team. Among them was Susan Cair ...

What was the career of this talented woman next? Expect to continue the story!