Paula asked us a simple question, “your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?” I have never really asked myself that question as a consumer. I have never felt "confused" that the logo is NOT a window. I have just generally liked Windows, the operating system, and have become fond of the brand after 15 years of use. This assumes that your logo MUST be a literal representation of your name. I'm curious to know why. With…
Maybe years from now they'll get really specific and put the molecular formula of glass in the logo.
Ever since Windows 3.1, I viewed the faux 3D window decorations as an insulting waste of my processing time. The Windows logo was merely an extrapolation of MS's attitude that "Now that we have such powerful computers, we can merrily waste all that power with this increasingly bloated but supposedly impressive OS." That attitude was not unique to them, at all. Apple has been equally guilty of it for longer than Micro…
I'm upvoting just for your edit, as I think disagreement via downvotes is a bit childish and all too common. Having said that, I doubt Microsoft is moving in a direction an Arch Linux user would call "minimalist".
Thanks, icarus_drowning. Having reread my post a day later, I realize that it could have been a lot better written. I suspect you're right, just based on MS history, but that logo certainly looks like a fresh mentality. It's simpler than the Arch logo, fwiw.
Fair enough. It's important to have different paradigms for different work styles. You use whatever works best for you. My point was just that tiling WMs were not anachronistic back in '85.
Part of me hopes Windows will rediscover tiling, considering their new-found love for tiles. In the unlikely event they execute on that I might actually be tempted to try windows again - for the first time in 10 years.
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.
Really? Can you point out an example of what you mean? As a design student I sometimes feel that there is a major "design disconnect" because people appreciate/gravitate towards a particular style. Designers do it too, but out of my own curiosity I'm wondering if that is happening here.
Using bold flat colors and clean lines and shapes, the new logo has the characteristics of way-finding design systems seen in airports and subways. Bold colors? As in plural colors? That's the first place they've failed. And trying to emulate an airport's system for moving people around is bad from the outset - those things are meant to be simple and boring. They do their task by being unambiguous, uniform, simple...…
Well, really, why shouldn't an operating system be "simple" and "boring" and "bland"? I don't need an exciting OS -- it needs to be dependable.
It doesn't matter how simple, boring, bland and dependable your product is, your logo should not be bland, especially if you're marketing to the general public.
Giving the blog a name that is easily confused with "Window Steam Blog" says a lot about the team's understanding of how to build user-friendly interfaces.
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.
You're right. This is some serious hack-ass stuff. I had no idea a firm that huge could consistently crank out such sub-standard junk.
Very few of these show any sort of polish. Maybe it's an ironic thing to look less refined.