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Back to Twiddling Bits with Susan Kare, with Susan Kare.

Why Does Susan Kare Still Work?

Susan Kare still works because of a mortgage, and because it feels fun to be part of what is happening now in tech and a little AI.

Years ago at Whole Foods in Palo Alto, she had just come back from a job on the peninsula and was driving up to the city. She thinks she and the woman she ran into both had young children. The woman asked why she was working. What came to mind was the mortgage. The work was not just a labor of love, and the woman did not have that constraint in her life. Not everybody does.

She likes being part of something about what is happening now in tech and a little AI, working on things that are evolving, as opposed to watching from the sidelines. She also likes working with people who have experience and have grown up.

Grokipedia·Susan Kare

Transcript

Twiddling Bits with Susan Kare ·

First of Kind

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  2. How Did Susan Kare's Drawings First Appear on Screen?Susan Kare saw her drawings appear on a screen almost like a parlor trick, taken from paper and suddenly there.
  3. Where Did the Facebook Thumbs Up Come From?Soleio traces the Facebook thumbs up to glyphs Aaron Sittig had already drawn for ranking stories in News Feed.
  4. How Did Susan Kare Discover Graphic Design?Susan Kare discovered graphic design at 14, as a very junior part-time design assistant at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, a science museum.
  5. What Did Steve Jobs Tell Susan Kare About Twiddling Bits?Steve Jobs told Susan Kare she would twiddle bits for the rest of her life and never make more than $20,000, when she could be the creative director of a…
  6. How Much Did Paul Rand Charge Steve Jobs for the NeXT Logo?Paul Rand charged Steve Jobs $100,000 to design the NeXT logo, and he required a first-class flight, a nice hotel, and a presentation of the work.
  7. Has Susan Kare's Design Approach Changed?Susan Kare would not say her approach to design has turned upside down.
  8. Why Wasn't Apple's Software Group a Design Organization?Susan Kare was the only designer in a software group at Apple, so the group was not a design organization.
  9. Did Steve Jobs Say the Macintosh Team Would Remember Those Days?Susan Kare says Steve Jobs often said they were going to remember these days, and they did. She still remembers the early Macintosh work long after it.
  10. Is It Easier to Be the Best If You Are First?Soleio says it is easy to be amongst the best if you are amongst the first. He does not know if the best energy is an energy of youth.

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