Icon designer Kare to testify in Apple v Samsung trial

Susan Kare, the designer of a number of Apple’s trademark images, is to be called as a witness in the Apple v Samsung court battle.

Kare designed the icon on the Command key of your Mac laptop. She also designed the “Happy Mac” start up icon as well as the trash can icon.

She is expected to speak about comparisons between the user interface graphics used on the iPhone and Samsung’s device.

We featured Kare in our Complete Apple A – Z. Not many people have heard of Kare but we all see her work every day, as she designed many of the interface elements, fonts and icons of the early Macintosh, some of which survive to this day. See the little icon on your keyboard’s Command (Apple) key. Kare took that design from a Swedish icon for a campsite, and made it the longest-lasting icon in Apple history. Her Chicago font was used as the interface font before Mac OS X, and continued use in the first four generations of iPod interface.

Many of her ground-breaking pixel icon designs – such as the Lasso, Grabber and Paint Bucket – are now standards in software interface design.

Steve Jobs loved her work so much that he employed her as Creative Director when he founded NeXT after getting pushed out of Apple in 1985. Later she sold her soul working for Microsoft, so that its products could look even more like the Mac.