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The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

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Re: The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

#31

Post by jcahill »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #27
macattack728 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is confused that the origin is swedish road signs. to quote from the article: "I was just not sure what a ‘feature’ looked like … so I was thumbing through a symbol dictionary and I came across this symbol (⌘). In the back of the book, it said it was for an ‘interesting feature’ at Swedish campgrounds. I thought it was maybe a little abstract, but it worked."

The original title of this submission was something like "Why is the Apple symbol seen on Swedish road signs?" It was clearly renamed and now my comment makes no sense.

It was: What is the Apple ⌘ symbol doing on hundreds of road signs in Sweden?

Re: The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

#32

Post by mmoez »

cosmojg wrote: post #7

For the lazy: the symbol (⌘) has apparently been used at Swedish campgrounds and parks for decades. It's used to denote interesting features, both natural and man-made. It was inspired by the way Swedish castles look from above (a central building with a turret at each corner).

Andy Hertzfeld (original Mac's hardware wizard) tells the story in https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor... :

Our bitmap artist Susan Kare had a comprehensive international symbol dictionary and she leafed through it, looking for an appropriate symbol that was distinctive, attractive and had at least something to do with the concept of a menu command.

Finally she came across a floral symbol that was used in Sweden to indicate an interesting feature or attraction in a campground.

Re: The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

#33

Post by rimliu »

madeofpalk wrote: post #30
runarberg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently it started being used to denote a place of interest in Finland in the 1950's. Funny enough I have always thought that sign was universal, understood by all culture to mean you can park your car here and see something interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looped_square

I saw it in Iceland last year when driving around. Must be a Nordic/Scandinavian thing

It's also used in Lithuania.

Re: The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

#34

Post by rusk »

brisance wrote: post #28
pvg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't get that impression from the Carmack stories at all. If you haven't had a chance before, dig into the early Mac development history at folkore.org. A number of the stories involve the team engaged in some (in hindsight) hilarious and ridiculous effort to humor, misdirect or otherwise manage Jobs in situations that arose primarily from him being profoundly, stubbornly, catastrophically wrong. The eventual res…

>The eventual resolution never involves Jobs saying 'ok, ok, you lot were right, let's do it your way'. That would be un-becoming of a narcissist and a leader. What he would do, is to do a 180 and claim that it was his idea all along. From a dispassionate point of view this is actually good since all sides of a contentious issue can be fully explored, but it sure feels shitty when someone steals your idea and claims…

> but it sure feels shitty when someone steals your idea and claims it as his own.

Such is the life of the salaried employee.

There are advantages though, in that you don't have to run with the idea. You can just go home in the evening and be with your kids.

Also, if it turns out to actually be a bad idea it's not your problem either!

Re: The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

#35

Post by rusk »

petard wrote: post #17
pvg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gates was quite heavily involved in making Microsoft's early products, long before they had '60 to 150 engineers'. In the case of Jobs, the really enduring mystery to me is that despite some seemingly disqualifying personality flaws, he managed to both surround himself with very talented people and get them to do outstanding work together. Once, you could chalk it up to luck but somehow he did it repeatedly.

I found the anecdotes from John Carmack about working with Jobs really interesting in this regard. Apart from being probably very smart Jobs did care a lot about the things they were building, and willing to throw everything overboard if you could convince him that an existing approach was not the right thing to do. It is something many managers or leaders lack IMHO, not willing to do the "right thing" because of pol…

because of politics, market studies or something else.

The big advantage Jobs had is that he never had to answer to anyone. It was always "his company". Except when it wasn't of course!

Re: The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

#36

Post by rusk »

oblio wrote: post #23
runarberg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently it started being used to denote a place of interest in Finland in the 1950's. Funny enough I have always thought that sign was universal, understood by all culture to mean you can park your car here and see something interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looped_square

There's just few things that are truly universal. One example from somewhat nearby: nodding means "no" in Bulgarian.

I've also met some Indian guys who bob their head when they're in agreement which is very similar to how I'd be used to people I know shaking their heads in disagreement.

Re: The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

#37

Post by jimothyhalpert7 »

> Kare also developed the icons, such as the trash can for discarding files, that helped define graphical interfaces. She and Jobs hit it off because they shared an instinct for simplicity along with a desire to make the Mac whimsical. “He usually came in at the end of every day,” she said. “He’d always want to know what was new, and he’s always had good taste and a good sense for visual details.” Sometimes he came in on Sunday morning, so Kare made it a point to be there working. Every now and then, she would run into a problem. He rejected one of her renderings of a rabbit, an icon for speeding up the mouse-click rate, saying that the furry creature looked “too gay.”

Re: The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

#38

Post by unicornporn »

cosmojg wrote: post #7

For the lazy: the symbol (⌘) has apparently been used at Swedish campgrounds and parks for decades. It's used to denote interesting features, both natural and man-made. It was inspired by the way Swedish castles look from above (a central building with a turret at each corner).

> the symbol (⌘) has apparently been used at Swedish campgrounds and parks for decades

That's not how I know the sign. The Swedish Transport Agency has a page for this road sign[1].

It says, roughly translated: “The symbol indicates an historic site [or attraction] of national interest. The nature of the historic site is indicated in connection with the symbol.”

So, it's probably more commonly used to mark viking age burial grounds than campgrounds.

-- Picky Swede

[1] https://www.transportstyrelsen.se/sv/vagtrafik/Vagmarken/Lok...

Re: The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

#39

Post by matwood »

petard wrote: post #17
pvg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gates was quite heavily involved in making Microsoft's early products, long before they had '60 to 150 engineers'. In the case of Jobs, the really enduring mystery to me is that despite some seemingly disqualifying personality flaws, he managed to both surround himself with very talented people and get them to do outstanding work together. Once, you could chalk it up to luck but somehow he did it repeatedly.

I found the anecdotes from John Carmack about working with Jobs really interesting in this regard. Apart from being probably very smart Jobs did care a lot about the things they were building, and willing to throw everything overboard if you could convince him that an existing approach was not the right thing to do. It is something many managers or leaders lack IMHO, not willing to do the "right thing" because of pol…

> and willing to throw everything overboard if you could convince him that an existing approach was not the right thing to do

"Strong opinions, loosely held" is a good way to approach many things.

Re: The Story Behind Susan Kare’s Iconic Design Work for Apple

#40

Post by firmgently »

rusk wrote: post #36
oblio wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just few things that are truly universal. One example from somewhat nearby: nodding means "no" in Bulgarian.

I've also met some Indian guys who bob their head when they're in agreement which is very similar to how I'd be used to people I know shaking their heads in disagreement.

I see that as a kind of figure-of-8 movement... when my friend and I visited India we decided that it was a cross between a nod and a shake ie. ambiguous yes/no, non-committal
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