{"id":2897,"date":"2009-08-21T23:23:26","date_gmt":"2009-08-22T06:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/?p=2897"},"modified":"2009-08-24T01:15:06","modified_gmt":"2009-08-24T08:15:06","slug":"the-originals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/archives\/2897","title":{"rendered":"The originals"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I miss these icons. Susan Kare<\/a> developed them – and the standard city-named fonts – for the original Apple Macintosh in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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My grungy Alta California font<\/a> was inspired by Kare’s original San Francisco font<\/a>; which, unfortunately hasn’t been available on a Macintosh for many years<\/a>. 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<\/a>. Sort of.<\/p>\n

Check out Kare’s online store<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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And drop by the Japan-based Vintage Mac Museum<\/a> to see some of Kare’s original icons in action.<\/p>\n\r\n\t

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