The originals
I miss these icons. Susan Kare developed them – and the standard city-named fonts – for the original Apple Macintosh in the early 1980s.
I particularly like the alert message guy in the right corner – a playful bitmapped take that has a similar feel as Oskar Schlemmer’s 1921 bauhaus icon.
My grungy Alta California font was inspired by Kare’s original San Francisco font; which, unfortunately hasn’t been available on a Macintosh for many years. I have a great respect for her ability to convey so many many different letters within a small 72 dpi black and white space. Unfortunately – thru gratuitous use – San Francisco did sort of become the Comic Sans of its day. Sort of.
Check out Kare’s online store for some fantastic tees and notecards. Rad digital art from a simpler era. An era that didn’t need gradients and drop shadows in order to dazzle.
And drop by the Japan-based Vintage Mac Museum to see some of Kare’s original icons in action.
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