---
title: "Chicago (1984) — Susan Kare"
description: "Chicago was designed by Susan Kare in 1984. What it signals, where you have seen it."
url: https://atoneplace.net/font/chicago/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Chicago

**Chicago: Susan Kare, 1984**

Sans-serif · The original Macintosh, and the first iPod.

Drawn pixel by pixel on graph paper for a 512×342 black-and-white screen, where every letter had to be legible in a nine-pixel height with no anti-aliasing. Kare designed most of the original Macintosh interface including the icons. Apple brought Chicago back for the iPod in 2001, which made a bitmap face from 1984 the typeface of the twenty-first century's most successful music player.

## The facts

- **Designed by:** Susan Kare
- **Released:** 1984
- **Classification:** Sans-serif
- **What it signals now:** The original Macintosh, and the first iPod.

## Where you have seen it

- Every Macintosh menu bar from 1984 to 1997
- The first three generations of iPod

## Other typefaces from the 1980s

| Typeface | Year | Designer | What it signals |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Arial | 1982 | Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders | A default. Something nobody chose. |
| Papyrus | 1982 | Chris Costello | A smoothie bar, a yoga studio, or Avatar. |
| Trajan | 1989 | Carol Twombly | A film poster. Specifically a serious one, or a legal drama. |

> This page describes the typeface rather than showing it. Displaying a specimen requires a licensed font file and almost none of these may be redistributed, so the descriptions name the letters to look at instead.

## Common questions

### Who designed Chicago?

Susan Kare, in 1984.

### What is Chicago used for?

The original Macintosh, and the first iPod. You will have seen it on Every Macintosh menu bar from 1984 to 1997, The first three generations of iPod.

## Related pages

- [Typefaces from the 1980s](https://atoneplace.net/font/decade/1980s/)
- [Akzidenz-Grotesk](https://atoneplace.net/font/akzidenz-grotesk/)
- [Franklin Gothic](https://atoneplace.net/font/franklin-gothic/)
- [Johnston](https://atoneplace.net/font/johnston/)
- [Futura](https://atoneplace.net/font/futura/)
- [Gill Sans](https://atoneplace.net/font/gill-sans/)
- [Helvetica](https://atoneplace.net/font/helvetica/)
- [Univers](https://atoneplace.net/font/univers/)
- [Optima](https://atoneplace.net/font/optima/)

## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]