The article starts of by saying that a lot is at stake when a company rolls out a new logo. I'd like to point out the Microsoft has, either intentionally or unintentionally, been piloting this logo-style in their products for the past few years, which is ostensibly a lower-risk proposition. Rolling out their parent brand logo to conform to this arguably successful re-branding that their individual software products have underwent over the past three or so years seems like a reasonably sound decision. Furthermore, if Microsoft has intentionally been piloting this new brand on parts of their business that are subordinate to the brand as a whole, then I'd have to say bravo for likely reducing a huge business risk in the making of a relatively permanent, long-term decision.
Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987
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Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987
#22I... don't hate it. What's wrong with me? It's bold, it's fresh, it does a pretty damn good job of shrugging off the Microsoft of the past 25 years.
You mean the one that utterly dominated the computer market and made money by the truckload when other companies could barely survive? Well, at least that's over now.
The one with the antitrust lawsuits, yeah.
Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987
#23Very ubuntish.
Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987
#24The logo is O.K. Their homepage http://microsoft.com looks like a mix between a "corporate" website template you'd buy for $50 and a domain squatting page with amazon referral links. Gosh I want to cheer for microsoft but they make it real hard.
It was only this morning that my wife said exactly the same thing about it looking like a domain squatting page (while she was trying to find MSE download on their web site).
Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987
#25I... don't hate it. What's wrong with me? It's bold, it's fresh, it does a pretty damn good job of shrugging off the Microsoft of the past 25 years.
I think you could only shrug the last 25 years off if you changed the word as well.
Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987
#26You know the greatest lesson I learned from the tv show The Wire? When your brand lacks credibility you make a change to the brand.[1][2] Good move by Microsoft.
On other hand, I'm still trying to grok why Twitter changed it's logo recently[3]? Was something inherently being tarnished about the Twitter brand? As far as I know, the answer is NO.
I'm going to make a major assumption here, but I think it had to do with it being driven by a Creative Director and not by a Marketing (i.e. Business) person. The blog post and title at least reads that way.
[1]- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undertow_(The_Wire)#Barksdale_t...
[2]- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbbZc2pab9k
[3]- http://blog.twitter.com/2012/06/taking-flight-twitterbird.ht...
Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987
#27Looks more like a new version of Windows logo to me.
I assume it's intentional. Isn't OSX full of apples here and there?
No, not really. But this is more an example of a product brand becoming the company brand, not the other way around. Apple is a rather poor example of this, as they are quite careful with their brand (for instance, changing the "Apple key" to the "command key" back in the day so as to not "abuse" the brand).
Sun changing their stock symbol to JAVA would be a better example.
Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987
#28You know the greatest lesson I learned from the tv show The Wire? When your brand lacks credibility you make a change to the brand.[1][2] Good move by Microsoft. On other hand, I'm still trying to grok why Twitter changed it's logo recently[3]? Was something inherently being tarnished about the Twitter brand? As far as I know, the answer is NO. I'm going to make a major assumption here, but I think it had to do with…
How does Microsoft lack credibility?
Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987
#29The logo is O.K. Their homepage http://microsoft.com looks like a mix between a "corporate" website template you'd buy for $50 and a domain squatting page with amazon referral links. Gosh I want to cheer for microsoft but they make it real hard.
The web came to Microsoft after the IPO. At the time, there were a lot employees with "fuck you money" and the web was still the wild west not a corporate branding commodity. Thus Microsoft's approach has been generally hands off and the first priority has always been to get information out on the web.
The idea of a monolithic website like Apple's or Google's just doesn't apply. It's not part of Microsoft's DNA. Compare:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/home
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/default.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-ed...
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/cc184874.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ms376608.aspx
Other than white backgrounds, it's not very consistent.
Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987
#30Jokingly: That logo cost them $50 [1]
My real questions are whether there will be a one-color variant, whether the symbol will be allowed to be displayed without the type, and how you could ever secure international trademark on four squares. My guess is that you'd have to be, well, Mircosoft. More than the logo designers, I'm really impressed by the legal team. My trademark lawyers would laugh at me.
[1] http://www.bestlookinglogos.com/2009/07/four-square-logo/
Edit: fixed to read 'international trademark'