Welcome to project 3

Why is Susan Kare an influential typographer?

Question one

Susan Kare's work stands out due to her fine arts background paired together beautifully with her design philosophy. If you have been on facebook, pinterest or played “the office time-waster” (otherwise known as microsofts solitaire) then you have seen her work. If you have bought an apple product within the last couple of years or back in 1984 then you’d be familiar with her pixelated, minimalistic and witty style. Susan Kare is best known for her icons and her typefaces she had made for the original Macintosh computer (Cesarato, n.d). Her Chicago type and numerous others were groundbreaking for their time, bringing a readable human feel to seemingly cold computers. The same can be said for her infamous icons she designed specifically for the purpose of being welcoming and universally understood.

Question one

Susan's design philosophy comes down to being clear while maintaining a human touch. She contributed to the minimalistic design style that you see brands today strive for. Companies want to feel neutral and clean whilst still seemingly human. Susan Kare was the first person to be able to do so because of her hard work at companies like Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and many more. It was her knowledge of fine arts like embroidery and her attitude to create something that was intuitive rather than overly complex that made her work something to aspire to. Something that many brands have is that minimalistic look. But what some of these companies seem to lack is that human feel that she did so well.

What is the most significant contribution Susan Kare has made to the field of typography?

Question two

Susan Kare made a lot of significant contributions but the biggest is arguably her work she did with Apple. When thinking of Susan Kare its hard not to instantly bring up images of pixel art, the old macintosh smiling computer and those (nowadays) retro pixelated fonts. She made a number of fonts for Apple that were groundbreaking for their time (“Timeless Design Insights from Susan Kare”, 2024). But there are two fonts that stand out the most. The first being the font of chicago and the second being the cairo bitmap font. They both hold significance by holding the basic principles of being accessible and intuitive for those who see them, something that inspired design for the long run.

Question two

The Chicago font was used in Apple products for some time. It stood out due to its bold roundedness in a time full of jagged and hard to read fonts (Hintz, 2018). Chicago did its intended goal extremely well. Susan designed this font to be easily readable to anyone, no matter who they were and the resolution of the screen they had. She did so by being the first to do a proportional font that didn’t need every letter to be in a set uniform space (Walker, 2014). She created this font with the key idea of readability and maintaining the aesthetics of the Macintosh's interface.

Question two

The second portion of Susan Kare’s contribution was her work she did with the Cairo font. Cairo is a bitmap font showcasing Susan's ability to create simple intuitive icons that users could use. These symbols are basically Apple's original emojis, allowing people to express their thoughts via symbols. These symbols as well as the many icons she created helped make the computer seem less cold and uninviting (“Timeless Design Insights from Susan Kare”,2024). One of the symbols within this font became popular due to its transformation to cow, and somehow ending up as both (Ellis Nolan, 2025).

What has this contribution influenced in the field of typography?

Question three

The typeface’s done by Susan Kare influenced the way type could be done on a computer screen. As mentioned before Chicago was groundbreaking because of how readable it was on different screens, including low-res (“Timeless Design Insights from Susan Kare”,2024). It showed that type didn't have to be janky or jagged but instead rounded and bold which helped open the world of computers to a wide range of people. Her work with Cairo bled into the influence she had with her icons. These small symbols were neutral, humanistic and intuitive. The font Cairo was a new digital way that symbols and icons could be a font. It influenced the way type could be utilised; it didn't just have to be letters in the digital world.

Question three

In an interview done on “NDA 20 years Q&A with Susan Kare”, Susan said good design was clear, memorable and had a meaningful impact (Maureen Holden, 2019). You can tell she lives up to her own definition by scanning at her work and its influence. A good example of this is that infamous “hello” script you see when getting an apple product, her Chicago font and the macintosh smile that was present when first booting up the computer (Walker, 2014). She took the first step in making digital type readable and proportional instead of monospaced which influenced how type could later be developed for a screen. The fonts created by Susan Kare left an impression on those that used it inspiring some future type to maintain readability and friendliness (“Timeless Design Insights from Susan Kare”, 2024).

Analysis of a typeface designed by Susan Kare.

Question four

Along with Chicago Susan Kare made a couple of other Fonts for the original Macintosh computer. She made geneva (a complimentary font to chicago), san francisco (originally Ransom) and New York for example. All of these city themed fonts are bitmap typefaces that Susan created. This type shown in the images is New York, a 12-point serif transitional font inspired by Times New Roman.

Question four

New York was designed in order to give a scholarly feel in comparison to the other fonts released at the same time. It did so by having a lighter stroke weight, possessing serifs and overall looking similar to typewriter letters. This font was introduced in order to give a professional, scholarly feel. This is highlighted when comparing it to Chicago which was a much bolder sans serif, that was intended for headings in the interface.

Question four

New York, like the other fonts released with it, was a proportional font that Susan Kare hand drew on a 9x7 pixel grid. It was created to be readable and legible to those who use and read this font. Although the font is rounded for readability the font still possesses a slight straight angular feeling which is shown in the A, uppercase U and uppercase Y. This is likely to contrast the chicago font as well as to give it a more refined and analytical feeling to better portray its intended purpose. The 1984 version of this font is no longer used; however a revamped version was made in 2019 by Apple.

Analysis of a typographic composition designed by Susan Kare.

Question five

There are a lot of recurring horizontal elements from the lines to the baseball bat. The curves and variation of size within the baseball compliments the differences in the San Francisco font. The fonts used by the people themselves (although it's unknown if Susan Kare drew that herself or let them sign it) allows for the viewer to see the difference in personalities from those who signed. This work stands out because it tells the story of how Susan Kare was on a small team of innovative individuals where she had lots of creative freedom.

Question five

Susan Kare has made a number of compositions over the years. She mainly works with icons as well as a number of works she did on the paint future of the original mac. In terms of a typographic composition, her work with the soft ball signup sheet has stood out. It's possible it’s due to the simplicity of the work but the type mixed with the pixel art makes a statement that's subtle but holds a lot of emotions.

Question five

Her decision to use the San Francisco type as the title immediately gives the work a sense of funness and youthfulness. The font itself was made to look like a ransom note with the letter cut and pasted onto the paper. Used as a title in this case is comparable to notes that young kids make when they want to hang out with their friends. When she made this piece she and the team she was working with played baseball to blow off steam and have fun when enduring long hours (Stephen, 2014). The funky lettering, the amount of lines with only 5 names filling them, all done in a different font tells a story about what Susan Kare was feeling at the time.