Term of the Moment
addictive intelligence
Definition: dogcow
An icon in the Mac that is used to show an image's orientation on the page. Part dog and part cow and uttering "Moof" (moo - woof) when clicked, the dogcow became a cult symbol. When dropped in the first version of Mac OS X, users complained. Created by graphic artist Susan Kare, the dogcow image and "Moof" are trademarks of Apple.
The Dogcow
The dogcow is used to provide an asymmetrical representation of the image. For example, if the image were inverted, the dogcow would invert and be visually obvious.