Rockstar Icon Designer - Kate McInnes [2]
Classic Macintosh Icons Designed by Artist Susan Kare – 1984.
1985 Atari TOS
It's important to note that the GUI was not only for the Apple systems. The Atari ST had an operating system called TOS which had a somewhat smaller user interface than the Apple computers but it used a desktop metaphor, which by 1985 had become a computer standard. It's interesting to note that the TOS icons make use of Planometric perspective to reinforce their meaning. You will learn more about Planometric and Isometric rendering styles later in this book.
Atari TOS icons use Planometric perspective on the draws to keep the pixel lines sharp when viewed at a distance.
1985 Amiga Workbench
The Amiga Workbench was made for the Amiga 1000 personal computer. Breaking with the desktop convention, the Amiga Workbench adopted a workshop metaphor and has Tools (programs), Projects (files), Draws (folders) and Gadgets (widgets). Despite the crudely designed icons, Workbench was ahead of its time and included features such as customizable mouse cursors, four color graphics, multi-state icons and windows-like multiple screens.
You can see an example of the multi-state icons of the Amiga Workbench with the Workbench icons on the left of the image.
1985 Windows 1.0x
After success with MS-DOS (1982) for the IBM computing system, Microsoft announced to the public that it was developing Microsoft Windows 1.0, a multi-tasking graphical user interface. Windows was finally released two years later after calls from critics that it was Vaporware (a term given to software that is announced but never produced). The delay in the development schedule is thought to be due to changes made, such as removing the overlapping windows, so that the interface didn't resemble designs by Macintosh. Initial sales were slow for 1.0 and Windows didn't become popular until version 3.1 in 1992.
The icons are basic and don't include color. It's especially interesting to see that the first icons for Windows Paint use different symbols to MacPaint, in particular the Spray Painter which looks like a spray pump and a Lasso which is a butterfly net.
Microsoft Windows 1.0 is a long way from its modern equivalent. The icons at the bottom are from the drawing application Windows Paint.
1986 GEOS for Commodore 64
In 1986 GEOS for the Commodore 64 was the second most popular GUI behind Macintosh 1.0 (based on units shipped). The icons have more character than Windows OS and share the Mac philosophy of clearly expressed metaphors. The GEOS Boot icon, although unconventional for most computers, is an interesting example of pun-based design solutions. In modern GUIs a design such as this is advised against because the word for Boot is different in many languages and the meaning of the icon would be lost in translation.
The Geos Boot icon is an example of a metaphor that may be lost in translation.
1989 - 1995 NeXTSTEP / OPENSTEP
NeXTSTEP, a GUI for Unix based computers, was developed by NeXT Computer. NeXT was founded in 1985 by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs, who subsequently hired Macintosh Icon Designer Susan Kare as Creative Director. By the time NeXTSTEP came onto the market, the GUI was used in both the home and work environment and was beginning to become more like the GUIs we know today. One significant addition to NeXTSTEP was a program dock on the right side of the screen which facilitated easy navigation of programs by the user. In 1997, almost ten years after NeXTSTEP was developed, Apple Computer acquired