In the early 1980s, Susan Kare was armed with only black-and-white pixels as her tools to create a universal language (in this case the language was icons) for a new, revolutionary technology: the Macintosh computer.
As one of the original employees of NeXT, the company created by Steve Jobs in 1985, Kare created many basic images, such as the hourglass and lasso icons, among others. When creating these now vital images, Kare said that she focused mainly on “presentation and metaphor,” and is always looking to streamline images in order to make them as simple and comprehensible as possible. Kare then went on to design images for Facebook’s gift icons.
These original sketches are currently being displayed at MoMa as part of This is for Everyone: Design Experiments for the Common Good exhibition. This exhibit melds two often disperate concepts, that of art and that of function, exploring the intersection of design and technology. You can see more of her work here.
h/t: Fast Company & Business Insider
