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Redesigning the Windows Logo

windowsteamblog.com

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Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#131

Post by dkrich »

Microsoft's main failure for the past decade or so is that they have repeatedly enacted a flurry of short-term strategies in reaction to whichever direction the industry winds happened to blowing, and did so for just about every consumer tech industry.

Xbox to Playstation, Bing to Google, Zune to iPod. In the process they did very little leading along the way and hemorrhaged money from all of these businesses.

I still like and respect Microsoft as a company and think they can still produce great things, and I hope that the next decade sees them develop some leadership and return to innovation.

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#132

Post by Corrado »

cschmidt wrote: post #93

The Pentagram blog also has a writeup on the new logo: http://pentagram.com/en/new/2012/02/new-work-microsoft.php including a nifty animated logo

I really like the video as it actually gives some "context" to the window and its relation to the text. I just wish this view was more transparent in the static version.

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#133

Post by mikemaccana »

lupatus wrote: post #126

If it didn't say "Windows 8" next to it, I wouldn't have known that it was the Windows logo. Frankly, it is kind of a let-down. The Vista & Windows 7 "pearl" logo is cool - it is flashy and is artistically impressive with it's lighting effects on the rounded semi-reflective surface. It draws the eye to itself. The new logo is a bland blue monochrome square whose slight tilt causes the eye to passively move right over…

Really? I bought the shiny blue liquid vista pearl looked a lot like a poor, and very self conscious, attempt to imitate their competitors.

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#135

Post by lwhi »

I think the metro UI is genuinely interesting and (dare I say it) exciting. The logo redesign fits with our times - but it's incredibly safe .. verging on dull.

Large corporations have so much ubiquity .. we encounter them so many times throughout our day. Daily exposure ensures familiarity and this familiarity eventually leads to acceptance; in one sense the logo could be virtually anything and would still serve its purpose (e.g. Pepsi redesign).

The age of the logo is over in my opinion .. these days the prominance of a logo has been supplanted by a fuzzier, more Machiavellian concept - the ability for a brand to connect with its audience on a personal level. In that respect a logo is sometimes simply fodder to for the latter; ensuring the brand and company are spoken about socially (e.g. the gap redesign / 2012 olympics).

It pains me to imagine how much Pentagram were paid for this.

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#137

Post by efsavage »

lbotos wrote: post #122
astrodust wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft makes the fatal error here of listening to what customers say and not what they are saying . They do this all the time and it's why their products tend to be train-wrecks, design by committee, functions by consensus, with little personality and zero fit and finish. This logo is an abomination. It is the kind of thing a first year design student would come up with after a weekend bender and their assignment…

The mark was done by Pentagram ( http://www.pentagram.com/ ), one of the top design firms IN THE WORLD. I don't know how you'd plan on giving the "flag" more "polish"... Making brand marks is a LOT harder than you make it out to be. I'm not a fan of the bright blue variant but I think the mark it does a great job matching the Metro aesthetic and will be old news by the time windows 9 comes out anyway.

OT, but wow, is it me or is nearly everything in their portfolio _terrible_. 95% of that junk wouldn't make it past the first cut on a 99 designs contest.

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#139

Post by sixothree »

ender7 wrote: post #33

I've actually grown to like the monochrome treatment of the Windows 7 logo: http://www.seeklogo.com/images/W/windows-logo-C2E55C2526-see... It looks quite nice on the back of monitor screens, for example. The extreme fake parallax in the new logo just ends up making it look unbalanced to me, like it's about to fall off my screen. I understand if they want to go all "Swiss" on the next logo...but if so, they shouldn't…

It's the first Windows operating system designed for tablet computing which is largely portrait mode, and it's the first flag logo with panes wider than tall. I wonder if that was intentional.

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#140

Post by sixothree »

tripzilch wrote: post #89

Yeah! Let's use the flag of Shetland so ... people won't confuse our logo with .. a flag? Um? Granted they didn't pick the flag of big country like Sweden or anything, and if Shetland, Calais and Pärnu, Estonia, as well as Iceland in the past, were already using it, why couldn't Microsoft? On a more serious note, there's lots of valid criticism on this logo, the TM and (R) are clutter, their "Metro style" is not supp…

Not to mention the dot on the i looks misplaced and misshapen.

My first emotional reaction to that logo was 'ewwww'. It's not a good sign when the best word I can find to describe it is gross.

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