25 years of the desktop icons’ revolution

Abstract

Susan Kare is the creator of the first set of icons designed for Macintosh 128K (1984). This new set of symbols had to be defi ned taking into account the environment, and Apple chose the visual metaphor of the desktop. It must have been a challenge for Kare to use only black and white on a grid of 32 by 32 pixels to outline actions devoid of any previous reference. However, her fi rst icons overcame technical limitations and became a necessary reference to establish the standards in the design of icons. Apple has introduced the most important progression in 25 years with the photorealistic icons of the Aqua interface on Mac OS X.