Susan Kare’s original artwork for the Windows 3.0 Solitaire game is featured on our new set of playing cards. The release of these cards coincides with the 25th anniversary of the original Solitaire computer game. This deck includes two jokers, designed by Kare exclusively for the Areaware release.

PVC

3.5" x 2.5" x 0.75"

Susan Kare created some of the most familiar user interface designs in early computing. The icons she designed for the original Macintosh operating system helped millions navigate easily through our early and unfamiliar digital environment, and include the trash can, lasso, and Finder Icon. See more of Susan's work at kare.com

I worked on the original pixel art for the on-screen Solitaire cards in 1990 using an IBM PC, Microsoft Paint, and the typical 16 VGA color palette of the time. A lot of those weren't particularly attractive colors, but fortunately the card faces only required black, red, and yellow. I was inspired by classic card decks, and had the most fun trying to translate the complicated patterns of the Jacks, Queens, and Kings to a 72 dots-per-inch grid.

Nearly 25 years later, I got back in the 90s mindset to design matching Jokers for the Areaware deck, since Solitaire doesn't use them.

Recently I was amused by a comment online that computer Solitaire was how people procrastinated before there was Twitter. : n )

-Susan Kare