Iconic designs created by women

The visual image of the society we know today would be very different without the contributions made by women, with their perspective, through design. Great names of professionals who were not given sufficient visibility and whose designs have influenced (each one to its own extent and in its own field) in the creation of a language of their own.

Iconic designs are just that: iconic. Recognisable, replicable and with an intrinsic message in themselves. Unlike these designs, their authors have transcended less and, although it is never too late to exalt their figures as the icons they really were, let us hope that we can stop losing along the wayside interesting professionals such as those we present today. In the same way, let us hope that their names will be studied at school with the same dedication as that given to the names of their male contemporaries.

Today, we present a quartet from the large cast of female role models that we have not been told about (as yet): Susan Kare, Margaret Calvert, Betty Willis and Elizabeth Magie.

Betty Willis

Las Vegas, without neon signs, would be many things. But it would not be Las Vegas.

Betty Willis was a US graphic designer. She is the woman responsible for the vibrant personality acquired by the city via the design of the sign “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas”.

The design of this sign represented one of the first examples of city branding in 1959, thanks to the energy it exudes and the preconceived idea that we all have of the city, without the need to have been there.

Betty explains by saying: “We made a sign that brought people from California and ended up bringing them from all over, that’s success.”

Her contributions to the postcard of the city did not end there: almost all sign designers until then had been men, but Betty made a name for herself in this field by creating memorable designs. She created some of the hotel signs with an aesthetic that reinforced this concept of Las Vegas as a welcoming city that never sleeps, such as that of the Moulin Rouge and the iconic Blue Angel sign at the Blue Angel Motel.

Elizabeth Magie

Elizabeth Magie was an inventor, poet and women’s rights activist. She was the designer of one of the most famous board games in the world: The Landlord’s Game; although today we would call it Monopoly.

Elizabeth designed The Landlord’s Game, a board game intended to raise awareness of the darker side of capitalism. This board game was designed with two modes: monopolistic and anti-monopolistic, the latter version being the one that triumphed.

The game became popular and Elizabeth sold her patent for $500 in 1950. In 1935, Charles Darrow patented a modified version of the game which was (now) called Monopoly, and which, unlike Elizabeth’s contract, provided for copyright payments. Unlike her, Charles became a millionaire.

Iconic designs created by women

We have evolved as a society: digitally and analogically, although, without our really knowing how, these two routes have often ended up as just one.

Without realising it, we use the resources of one for the other: design systems are an example of this. One of the first clear examples of a design system known worldwide was the development of road signs which has subsequently inspired other digital design systems such as interface icons.

Some of the best-known design systems in the world were invented by women. This is the case of the iconic designs of Susan Kare and Margaret Calvert which, despite being two very different systems, fulfil the same function: making the user experience successful.

Margaret Calvert

The work of Margaret Calvert has helped save hundreds of thousands of lives in the United Kingdom and subsequently all around the world.

In the 1960s, cars travelled increasingly quickly and the need arose to redesign the traffic signs, which were illegible at high speed. This was the mission entrusted to Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir, between 1957 and 1967. The design system that they developed subsequently became a model of modern road signage, which has been in use ever since.

The importance of good design in such an important space as the roads, where reading must be automatic and reactions immediate, makes the achievement of Margaret a contribution worthy of being recognised and broadcast.

Susan Kare

The rubbish bin, the tin of paint, the mythical happy icon when we switch on the Mac or the disk to save files. Susan Kare designed them all. These and the majority of the icons of the original Apple Macintosh of 1984, which lay the foundations of the visual language that enables us to move around on a device by clicking on images. Icons so recognisable today that they have become legendary.

Susan took up the idea of the everyday elements of an office as a metaphor for the desk and, based on a grid-square notebook which enabled her to draw the pixels of the icons, she expertly created the icons that accompanied the new functions of this graphic system, giving them a personality that today, albeit subtly, still endures.

The aim of retrieving female role models is not so much to award medals where they were not awarded, but to give visibility to all those ideas that have transcended and have been of enormous value in the evolution of society in order to awaken passions, interest and aspirations.

In Spain, too, we have had, and still have, examples of iconic designers such as Toni Miserachs who, with her designs, was able to contribute to the progress of the Spanish Transition to democracy. We recuperate one of the most interesting interviews given by the creator (which can be read here).

Wishing to be like somebody is one of the dreams that leads us to follow paths, begin degree courses or find specific jobs. We want to be like the people we admire, but if there are no role models, it is difficult to awaken the necessary passion. And although role models begin in class, at home and in our immediate surroundings, telling internationally known anecdotes always seems to be more illustrative.