| Date: 1984 Designer:
Susan Kare Foundry:
Apple Computer Location:
Cupertino, California, USA
Current equivalent:
Chicago See also:
Charcoal, Espy Sans
Technologies:
Bitmap / Postscript |
| Famous for:
First system font for Apple Computer. Applications: Onscreen and Multimedia Ubiquity:
Very widely used Category:
Sans Serif Bitmap Stress: Vertical
Serifs: Sans | | Design History:
Chicago was integral to the success of Apple's revolutionary graphic user interface (GUI) launched in 1984. Pre-loaded with the system software in five sizes (8, 10, 12, 14, 24), it was superceded by David Berlow's Charcoal in version 8 of the Apple Macintosh Operating System. Designed to be both recognizable and easily readable in dialogue boxes and drop-down menus, Chicago also re-defined the terminology of typefounding; with the introduction of 'font' as a term defining all sizes of a typeface installed on a computer, it should be noted that Chicago is a screen font - it only exists on the screen as a bitmap and prints via a smoothing routine built into the printer firmware. In other words it does not exist as a printer-definable outline. | |  |
