Icons of the Past into the Future
As someone who loves art history, when I think of the word “icons” in isolation, I think about the religious icons that were popular in the Eastern Orthodox Church — these beautiful, gilded paintings centered on religious themes and popular saints and religious figures.
While beautiful and meaningful, these are not the icons that I found while going about my life.
I noted a lot of icons on packaging and electronics, but I thought it would be more interesting to examine the icons right underneath my fingers — the icons on my keyboard.
One of the symbols I’d always been curious about was the command symbol (⌘). Where did it come from? What did it mean? Was it a symbol for something else before it was the command symbol?
Thanks to the internet, I was able to get some really great answers!
The command symbol key was introduced on the 1984 Macintosh as a replacement for the apple key (which had the same function as the command key) that existed on earlier models like the Apple III, which can be explained by Steve Jobs exclamations: “There are too many Apples on the screen! It’s ridiculous! We’re taking the Apple logo in vain!”*
Susan Kare, the graphic designer that created many enduring interface elements for Apple in the 1980s, had chosen the ⌘ symbol after considering a number of different symbols (symbols showing “command”, such as a police badge, police hat, whistle, etc.), but finally found the ⌘ symbol while looking through a symbol dictionary for inspiration.
Known as the “Saint John’s Arms,” the Place of Interest Sign, the Saint Hannes cross, or Looped square, ⌘ is an ancient symbol that is still in common use in places like Sweden, where they use the symbol on signs to indicate a place of interest.
Indeed, it’s very distinctive and attractive shape is one of the reasons why Kare chose the symbol for command which is still in use today.
Though one of her talks, Kare talks about one of her fans sending her an image as evidence that the ⌘ symbol was inspired by the aerial view of a castle in Sweden, the symbol itself seems to be much older than that, with stones from the 5th to 7th century also bearing the symbol.
While many of the other symbols on the keyboard do not have such illustrious histories, the other symbol that I love on the keyboard is a more common one: the power symbol.
The nerd in me has always loved that this symbol arose out of the fact that in binary, “1” mean on, and “0” meant off — so the combination of those two then became the “on/off” button. Simple, meaningful, distinct, and elegant, which is why that symbol has persisted for so long.
Though vastly different in style, one thing that religious icons and these keyboard icons have in common are that they are both visual representations of a much larger, and complex reality — one spiritual, one earthly. Considering the ancient age of the ⌘ symbol, it’s possible that this one works in both realms.
* Hertzfeld, Andy. “Swedish Campground”. Folklore.org: Macintosh Stories. Retrieved December 23, 2006.
Slides from Susan Kare’s great talk at EG8 in 2014.
