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Susan Kare on how the original Mac

posted by Jason Kottke Jan 26, 2004

Susan Kare on how the original Mac fonts (Chicago, Geneva, etc.) got their names.

Reader comments

mendelJan 26, 2004 at 3:36PM

Interesting. I was a bit disappointed that there was no mention of why each font got its name, but perhaps that's too obvious anyhow (i'm no type designer, but New York has its Times, and Geneva is a Helvetic city...). But then again, the rest aren't that obvious to me (except maybe London). Does anyone else know the remaining city-to-typeface connections?

Lester NelsonJan 27, 2004 at 2:10AM

Man, I'm glad I'm not the only one that had to find the articles written by Susan Kare as soon as I found out Folklore was up. There's a lot of interesting stories on that site.

CheshireJan 27, 2004 at 4:05AM

Mendel -- I thought the same thing. Cairo, the symbol font, must have been a reference to hieroglyphics. Athens, if I recall correctly, is very close in design to Aachen (which itself is named after a city, though Americans likely know Athens far better than Aachen), though I don't know if there's any relation between the two names. I have no clue about Chicago.

This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.