The ⌘ (Command) Symbol
The name for the company draws from one of the most iconic, simple symbols in the modern design world: ⌘ — the Command symbol. It’s more than a keyboard key. It’s a design story that goes back over a thousand years.
A long, long time ago…
Long before it appeared on keyboards, the looped-square symbol was used across Scandinavia as a marker of importance.
On Swedish maps, it identified sevärdheter — “places of interest” such as castles, campsites, landmarks, and cultural sites — basically, anything worth paying attention to.
It went by many names:
- Saint John’s Arms
- The Looped Square
- The Borgund Symbol
But its purpose was always the same: “Look here. This matters.”
How It Became the Command Key
In the early 1980s, the Apple Macintosh team needed a new symbol for the main shortcut key. At the time, Apple used the Apple logo everywhere — menus, toolbars, shortcut indicators — until Steve Jobs famously said it was being used too much.
Designer Susan Kare (the same legend behind the original Mac icons) looked through a book of international symbols and rediscovered the looped square.
She chose it because:
- It communicated importance
- It was clean and highly legible at small pixel sizes
- It felt neutral, iconic, and functional
- It already symbolized a special action in the real world
And so, the ancient Scandinavian landmark symbol became the visual cue for shortcuts on the Mac — and eventually, an icon recognized worldwide.