Icons…=)

As with great works of art, you must look into the past to appreciate the future. With roots as far back as the 1970?s, the humble icon has come a long way. Following is a collection of icons though history. Although there have been many other operating systems in the time between 1981 – 2010, I’ve hand picked the ones of the most significance to modern icon design. These designs show just a small fraction of the icons in the many and varied User Interfaces throughout the years. To learn more about the history of User Interface Design you can find a comprehensive article on the subject on Wikipedia.

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1981 Xerox 8010 Star — The First Consumer GUI Computer

In 1973 the Xerox Alto was the world’s first GUI (Graphical User Interface) based computing system. Designed around an “office” metaphor (also a first), the Alto was built as a research computer and therefore wasn’t available for commercial release. With 2,000 machines worldwide, the Xerox Alto was so significant, it was a source of inspiration for the Apple Lisa (1983). In 1981 the Xerox Star was released, incorporating many of the design features of the Alto. The Xerox icons demonstrate a consideration for human interaction. As you can see, Calculator, Document, Folder and Trash haven’t changed in almost 30 years.

1983 Apple Lisa — Popularized the GUI

Development of the Apple Lisa started in 1978 and was heavily influenced by the earlier Xerox computers. Hoping to carve a niche in the personal computing market, Apple adopted the office metaphor to make navigation easier for new users. Lisa was an advanced GUI for the time as it had movable “Desk Accessories” (early Widgets), drop-down menus and folder based directories. You can see the icons are not much different from the Xerox, except for the size and single pixel outlines, and the use of the computer as the preferences icon (it’s now common to use cogs).

1984 Apple Macintosh 1.0 — Artist Designed Icons

A year after Lisa the Apple Macintosh 1.0 was released. We now see drag and drop file copying, movable windows and fancy new icons! The Macintosh icons were designed by the now legendary Susan Kare. Susan Kare has to be the all time master of Icon design and was responsible for many icons including the MacPaint interface (fig 2). Kare’s philosophy on icon design is simple, “I believe that good icons are more akin to road signs rather than illustrations, and ideally should present an idea in a clear, concise, and memorable way. I try to optimize for clarity and simplicity even as palette and resolution options have increased.” This philosophy is at the core of Apple’s early commercial success.