Susan Kare: Designing Icons & Graphics For the Original Mac

Susan Kare shares the design principles and stories behind the iconic graphics, typefaces, and symbols of the original Macintosh.

Susan Kare joined Apple as an art history PhD who barely knew anything about computers. She went on to design many of the icons, typefaces, and symbols that helped make the original Macintosh feel understandable and human, defining a visual language for personal computing that still influences software today. At Startup School 2026, Susan shares the stories behind the Happy Mac, Command key, Chicago font, and more, along with the design lessons she learned from Steve Jobs, Paul Rand, and the original Mac team: make things meaningful and memorable, embrace constraints, iterate constantly, and use just enough detail to make an idea instantly clear. Transcript: ycrootaccess.com/p/susan-kare-on-designing-the-original Apply to Y Combinator: ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: ycombinator.com/jobs Chapters: 00:00 — Making Things Meaningful and Memorable 01:51 — How Susan Joined Apple 05:01 — Designing the Original Macintosh 06:35 — A Computer Anyone Could Use 08:26 — Creating Chicago and the Mac Typefaces 11:47 — MacPaint and the First Icons 14:45 — The Story Behind the Happy Mac 17:08 — Why Simple Icons Work Better 18:25 — The Icons That Didn’t Work 21:23 — Designing Symbols That Last 22:44 — How the Command Key Got Its Symbol 25:20 — What Ancient Symbols Can Teach Designers 30:18 — Designing After Apple 36:32 — Lessons From Steve Jobs, Paul Rand, and More