Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987 • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987

#81

Post by DominikR » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:03 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #50

buro9 wrote: post #44

For me... personally, the logo doesn't work. I am slightly colour blind. The logo in the article I see just fine, and all of the squares are the same size. And I get it... Metro theme. The favicon.ico and small logo on Microsoft.com Those don't fair as well. The red and yellow squares are much larger than the green and blue, and my eyes see a throbbing line around the bottom and left of the red box, and a black line…

I'm part of that colour-blind chunk, and I don't see anything like what you're seeing. The squares appear to be an uneven size, but what would that have to do with our lack of ability to see colour? Colour-blindness comes in a great many varieties, and to be honest, if you're making something involving colour, you're going to displease some of them.

Arguably (for this logo) seemingly wrong proportions are worse than too similar looking shades of grey, since no writing or visual metaphors lost are lost when you convert this logo to greyscale.

And I personally believe that this could (and should) have been worked around in some way since about 7-10% of the population has some kind of color blindness.

Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987

#82

Post by Livven » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:08 PM UTC

Jabbles wrote: post #43

toddmorey wrote: post #30

Jokingly: 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.…

Should I make a FourSquare reference? I'm just amazed that the colours are a rotation of Google's Favicon... Red Green Blue Yellow. (Alright so it's orange, not red.) https://www.google.com/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imgh... Is there any way to get a compressed google search URL that's not a redirect?

Um, ever seen the old Windows logo?

Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987

#83

Post by Millennium » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:11 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #39

davidedicillo wrote: post #38

Something I noticed: beside the M, the rest of the font is very similar to the font Myriad (the font used by Apple in their logo).

I believe it's Segoe, which Microsoft owns and has been using everywhere lately.

So basically, Segoe is to Myriad as Arial is to Helvetica.

Got it.

Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987

#84

Post by RegEx » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:14 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #76

jlgreco wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those things owe their success to goodwill people have to the Microsoft brand?

Do people buy MacBooks out of goodwill to Apple, or because they're kickass hardware?

I'd actually assert a portion of people buy Apple products out of goodwill to Apple. This should not be taken as a compliment, though.

Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987

#85

Post by systems » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:15 PM UTC

sudonim wrote: post #7

The 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.

i think the worst part about their new homepage is the "Welcome to Microsoft" white bare/space at the top, they could, and should have made better use of that space

Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987

#86

Post by bjornsteffanson » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:18 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #29

sudonim wrote: post #7

The 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. Comp…

I understand what mean about it not being part of Microsoft's DNA, but it seems like you're trying to blame Microsoft's poor web presence on its age. How do you then rationalize other pre-Web companies like IBM and Apple who have managed to successfully embrace it?

Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987

#87

Post by discreteevent » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:18 PM UTC

quarterto wrote: post #2

I... 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 don't like it. I like mimimalism but this clean minimal look that's virtually everywhere (as people try to outdo each other in simplicity) is just a fashion. You know already that there is going to be a backlash against this as there always has been in the past (how long did the Bauhaus last?) and then this will be outdated. Also the primary colours are a bit sixties'ish and shortly will look just as dated as anything from that time. Its just the wheel going around with some hailing each revolution as, well, a revolution!

Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987

#88

Post by tluyben2 » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:19 PM UTC

buro9 wrote: post #44

For me... personally, the logo doesn't work. I am slightly colour blind. The logo in the article I see just fine, and all of the squares are the same size. And I get it... Metro theme. The favicon.ico and small logo on Microsoft.com Those don't fair as well. The red and yellow squares are much larger than the green and blue, and my eyes see a throbbing line around the bottom and left of the red box, and a black line…

I have the same issues; for me the red is much larger than the rest and the yellow one is pulsating. I have it with everything involving rasters and some colors. Actually some patterns make me nauseous (not this one though).

I'm not bothered much by it, but I avoid, while making things, combinations that make this happen.

I don't know if it is because I am slightly color blind (on tests I can usually read maybe 1 of those blotted spots with letters/digits in them; http://www.toledo-bend.com/colorblind/Ishihara.asp => I can only see the top left one, which is the tester if you're not totally blind I think :), the rest is just random spots. People who don't have this issue might think I cannot see colors at all but I can; it's only in combination it might go wrong.), but it's worse when i'm tired.

The best freak show is a big squared 'tent', but with small squares of 2 horrible colors, like red + green/blue in bright power-saving-lights inside, for instance, a shopping mall and me not having had the best night sleep. Then I see these effects really well and actually have to move away from the offending object quite rapidly.

Edit: I mean 'checkered' not squared, so like http://www.schnittmuster-stoffe.de/images/product_images/pop... but then preferably plastic material, bad, bright colors and preferably so big I cannot look around it.

Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987

#89

Post by chawco » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:19 PM UTC

Prophasi wrote: post #70

pyre wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> made money by the truckload when other companies > could barely survive The other companies would probably have fared better of Microsoft wasn't dominating the market. This phrasing makes it sound like the market wasn't a zero-sum game.

The market wasn't then, and isn't now, zero-sum. Microsoft's domination was achieved by making passable-to-excellent browsers in the beginning and putting them on the desktop, which made the web more accessible to millions of people, boosted commerce, and pushed feature development forward much more quickly than Netscape (or any company) would have done absent competition. Bigger market, bigger pie, more investment,…

This isn't how I remember the 90s. I remember Microsoft shipping several versions of laughably bad browsers, while their operating system completely dominated the market. They finally shipped a better browser than NS with IE4, but that has just as much to do with shipping a usable product as it does with NS failing to ship a good product.

That said, in those days the web wasn't yet a big deal, and wouldn't be for another couple of years. I don't see how MS "boosted commerce" at all during this timeframe, either. By the time the web became accessible to the multitudes, and was being used for commerce MS already dominated the browser market.

Re: Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987

#90

Post by sp332 » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:21 PM UTC

Millennium wrote: post #83

sp332 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's Segoe, which Microsoft owns and has been using everywhere lately.

So basically, Segoe is to Myriad as Arial is to Helvetica. Got it.

It's more like they're both similar to Frutiger. And Myriad is barely 2 years older than Segoe, and it was developed by Agfa not MS, so it's not likely that it was copied. While Arial was kind of a crappy font, MS's new stuff (Consolas, Calibri etc.) has been pretty nice.