Objective
The iconic designer project was a semester long research and design project for the Design History course. We were prompted to choose a "role model" designer and complete three assignments based upon our research. The assignment started with a research essay in which we were to look into their history, design process, and philosophies. This would create a foundation of information in order to complete the next two parts of the project.
My Role Model
I chose Susan Kare, who is a graphic designer that was on the original design team at Apple. She worked on the Macintosh and created some of the most iconic pixel-based symbols and letterforms that every computer user knows today.
Booklet
The second part of the project was to create a booklet that describes the design role model and tells their story. This booklet uses typography and graphic elements that represent the style of the designer to educate about their work and their approach to design.
Development
I started by attempting to mimic some icons from memory using a grid.
In order to portray Susan's design style in the booklet, I recreated her icons in Adobe Illustrator using a grid. I wanted to emulate her process and fully immerse myself into her original designs.
I also experimented with developing numeral forms as well as creating my own icons from online inspiration. This demonstrates my symbol production skills and implementation of my own perspective to the project.
Final Booklet
I used Susan's original fonts for the information taken from my essay, combined with her icons recreated by me, in order to further showcase her impact on graphic design and symbol creation.
Poster Series
The final part of the assignment was to create two posters that showcase and celebrate the work of the role model. The posters include original imagery and design elements created to relate to and emulate the work of the designer.
For both of these assignments I took inspiration from the original Macintosh's layout to mimic a home screen. I used the information I learned about Susan to acknowledge her design process and developed an homage to her interface design. I created each aspect of these visual interpretations except for Susan's original fonts, which I downloaded.
Final Poster Series
