What do denim jeans and the iPhone have in common? The answer is: more than you think. Textiles and computers are both incredibly ubiquitous technologies. In fact, textiles are one of the oldest forms of technology that we use daily. The clothes we dress in every day represent hundreds of thousands of years of textile development — from the time humans first began to dress themselves in animal skins to the industrialization of garment creation during the 19th century. Meanwhile, computers are one of the newest technological advancements of the modern day. From smartphones to smart-refrigerators, computers have become fully integrated into our daily lives. While they may seem separate, the connection between these ancient and modern technologies is strong. 

The invention of Jacquard looms in the early 18th century not only revolutionized the world of textiles, but also aided in the creation of the very first computers. Jacquard looms automated the weaving of complex textiles such as brocade, matelasse and damask, allowing patterns that were once painstakingly woven by hand to now be created with greater ease and efficiency. Weaving instructions were translated onto punch cards, communicating in a binary of “over” or “under” for each thread being woven. In the 1830s, Charles Babbage was inspired by the punch cards of the Jacquard loom and used them to store the programming for the first ever mechanical computer, which he named the Analytical Engine. As computers developed, paper punch cards were still used. In early digital computers, programming was stored on punch cards and read by machines that detected which places on the card were punched and not punched. This physical information was then translated into digital data in the form of ones and zeroes. Eventually, punch cards stopped being used in favor of more advanced methods of data storage and processing. However, the binary code of ones and zeroes is still used to code computers today, reflecting computers’ continued connection to the coding of Jacquard looms. 

While punch cards may no longer be in use, our modern laptops, phones and other personal computers are still intimately linked to the history of textiles. Apple revolutionized the world of computers with the release of the first Macintosh in 1984. While the Mac was not the first personal computer on the market, its graphical user interface played a significant role in its widespread prevalence. As opposed to text based commands, Mac computers used visual symbols and pictures to communicate, making them easy and intuitive to use. 

The designer behind these icons is Susan Kare. Kare was a sculptor when she was hired by Mac in 1982 and was tasked with creating graphics for various computer commands. She had never worked with computers before, but she saw the connection between pixels and textile arts, such as needlepoint and cross stitch, which she calls “pseudo-digital” art. Kare sketched her original set of designs on graphing paper, using her textile knowledge as well as her sense of humor and fun, to create a set of images for the Mac. She took inspiration from hieroglyphics, nordic symbols and mosaics. For example, if you look at the command key on your computer, the icon there is inspired by the Nordic Hannunvaakuna symbol. Kare designed icons such as a wristwatch to tell people to wait while the computer was loading, a paintbrush to open the painting applications and the iconic floppy disk image which launched the programs within the diskette inserted into the Mac. Symbols such as the trash bin to discard files or the scissors to cut text have persisted until today and are present on most digital applications, even outside of Apple’s product range. Kare wanted users to feel welcomed and comfortable, putting a smiley face on an icon of the Mac which users would see when they turned on their computer. As Kare explained in an interview on the television series “The Computer Chronicles” in 1984, “you get an image of a content Mac so you know that everything is okay.” 

Kare’s textile inspired work is also a precursor to the modern emoji, a technology that has changed the way humans communicate. Much like how Kare’s icons translated lengthy digital commands into easy to understand symbolic icons, emojis translate complex human emotions into symbolic images. Kare’s 12x12 pixel images inspired the first official set of emojis designed by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999, which bear a striking resemblance to her images. 

So, while textiles and computers may initially seem unconnected, a deeper look into the history of the two reveal that textiles have influenced and revolutionized computers.