The history of
Clarus the
dogcow: The dogcow (actually it was just a dog at this point) first appeared in the
font called Cario which was part of the original verson of the
Macintosh Operating System. It was drawn by Susan Kare who, among other things, also drew the
trash can and the
watch pictures used in the original OS.
About the time that the Cairo font was being phased out and after Ms. Kare had left for
NeXT the Apple team needed a picture for their Page Setup
dialog box that would illustrate how the
page was going to be oriented when it was printed. The
dog from the Cairo font fit the bill. It was blown up and put in the dialog. However, the dog didn't survive the
translation well. As a matter of fact, a debate arose as to whether the picture in the dialog was a dog or a cow. Eventually, to settle the matter, it was branded (no pun intended) a dogcow.
At least that's one
version of the story. As is true with much of
Apple lore, there's more than one way the story gets told.