Susan Kare

Susan Kare is an American graphic designer who is regarded as being the first UI designer. She is known for creating interface elements on the Apple Macintosh from 1983 to 1986. She also designed the font Chicago for the Apple Macintosh. Through her icon designs, her goal was to make the computer seem more human than machine-like. Initially she had to work with very little pixels and the previous designers at Apple thought it was impossible to create a convincing and meaningful portrait with just 32 x 32 pixels but Kare proved otherwise. Her design work focuses on simplicity and clarity. As Paul Rand put it, “Don’t try to be original, just try to be good.” Therefore, her icon designs are simple but easy to understand. Her strength lies in the fact that as soon as someone looks at her icons, they can immediately recognize it and what it means.