Watch Susan Kare revisit the icons and graphics for the original Mac

Legendary graphic designer Susan Kare spoke recently at the Startup School 2026 event, and the video for her talk is now up on Y Combinator’s YouTube channel. Watch it below.

Susan Kare shares great stories and design lessons

More than 40 years after the launch of the original Macintosh, the system’s graphics, fonts, icons, and overall UI elements look as striking as they did back in the day.

In fact, several aspects of Susan Kare’s original ideas for the first Macintosh are still part of macOS, either in spirit or quite literally. From the Command key symbol to the Happy Mac to the system fonts to the hand pointer and beyond, Kare’s work helped shape the visual language of personal computing, not just on the Mac but across the entire industry.

And while anyone who’s ever looked into Apple’s history has probably seen Kare’s sketches and even read or heard her interviews about that early work, it is always interesting to hear her talk about the passion and the frustrations that defined those early days, when graphical user interfaces and bitmap graphics were still largely uncharted territory.

For this reason, if you are at all interested in design, in Apple history, or in hearing people talk with domain expertise about a subject they love and dedicated their entire lives to, Kare’s talk is a treat.

In addition to detailing the work she did at Apple, Kare talks about how she joined the company, shows work she did after she left, and shares tidbits from Apple’s early days, along with quotes from other legendary designers for that extra kick of inspiration.

Watch the video below:

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