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Redesigning the Windows Logo

windowsteamblog.com

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Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#71

Post by seldo »

literalusername wrote: post #59
nirvana wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly that logo accurately represents the way "Windows" worked in Windows 1.0. It didn't have overlapping windows. So the lines within the windows represent the dividers of the UI between the window areas. You could make one window bigger by moving a divider over, making all the windows on the other side of that divider smaller. There was no concept of windows being in front of or behind each other (like ther…

You speak about tiling window managers as if they were already an anachronism in 1985. Yet today, some of us continue to prefer them, and they remain in active development. What good is a window that's partially covered? I either want to completely see it or I want it to be completely hidden from view. The parlor trick of overlapping windows is useless to me.

I constantly use overlapping windows.

If I'm tailing a continuous log, I don't need to see the full text of each line, I just need to see when the pattern changes, which I can get by having the first 10 characters peeking out from behind the left of my active window.

My to-do list is big but really the first three words or so are enough to remind me of what each item is; it's behind and to the left of the tailing log.

Finally, I have a few corners of various other apps I'm using poking out all over the place. It's much easier to switch to the window I want by grabbing a corner than alt-tabbing or any other method.

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#72

Post by pvarangot »

cpeterso wrote: post #63
redthrowaway wrote: post #44

Does the kerning in the new logo look wrong to anyone else? That 'o' has an awful lot of space around it.

The kerning immediately irked me, too, but I was thinking the 'W' and 'i' were too close.

The way the W sort of points at the dot in the i makes me feel like if someone is poking my eye.

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#75

Post by flomo »

jackalope wrote: post #46
zaidf wrote: post #38

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…

I've always wondered why it was a flag. I've never liked Windows, and the logo always struck me as creepy, like they're trying to make you choose a side: "Come march under our banner!"

I always interpreted it as a "flying window" (which was also the name of an old screensaver).

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#77

Post by seldo »

zaidf wrote: post #38

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…

Whether or not you think a logo should literally depict a name, I think her point was that the logo was originally intended to be a literal window: the Windows 1.0 logo was a picture of on-screen desktop windows, the 1989 version was a physical window, but in 3.1 they hopped the rails to a wavy thing that got steadily more flag-like.

This new version is a step back to the roots of the original design. It's clean, it's clear, and I like it.

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#78

Post by freehunter »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7
demione wrote: post #3

Could someone explain what motivates Microsoft to try and "completely reimagine" their OS every time they iterate? We're talking about an OS, not a video game. I get that they're trying to innovate, but it comes across as self-deprecating. I love how Apple has maintained uniformity in their UI across the past few iterations of OSX. It's just one less thing to worry about relearning, allowing me to get my work done ea…

Perhaps they are dealing with a public perception that they are 'old sauce' which is to say "Oh my grandparents used Windows, I use ." Technology has its fashion moments and this is one of them. When you elevate the OS to the level of 'brand' you enter into a world where fashion as well as features dictate acceptance. So in that world, they need to have a fashion statement as well as a technology statement. That bein…

Well in XP Tablet Edition, people with touch screens did have a high precision pointing device. Capacitive screens were uncommon with end users at that time, and almost unheard of (completely unheard of?) in laptops. I don't know if Vista had a tablet edition, but in Windows 7 it's pretty easy to get around the basic OS with a finger. The only real difficulty comes in with third party apps that do not follow finger-friendly design concepts.

Even for Windows 7 checkboxes, I've seen capacitive screen drivers/software that allow for some "fuzzing", where if you hit somewhere around the checkbox/button, it gets checked.

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#79

Post by polshaw »

cpeterso wrote: post #67

I think they should have retained the distinctive red/green/blue/yellow colors of the Windows logo. And skipped the parallax. The Metro look has lots of flat, colorful squares that are just crying out to become a Windows logo. See this Windows 8 screenshot, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windows_8_Developer_Previ...

Agreed -- it would have been to metro what the windows 1.0 logo was to it's tiled windows. If the colours were deemed too garish, then perhaps varying lightness of one colour.

Re: Redesigning the Windows Logo

#80

Post by bitwize »

aggarwalachal wrote: post #51
Ryanmf wrote: post #37

"Your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?" I wonder how much they paid to listen to an expert ask that question when it was likely asked, and ignored, internally for years.

not really a flag... i guess they look at something like this for "window" http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs15/f/2007/113/9/d/Old_Window_by...

It was a flag.

I guess it's supposed to connote triumphalism. As in "yay, it finally shipped!" The NetBSD logo, itself based on a cartoon of daemons hoisting a flag like at Iwo Jima, has many of the same connotations.

Back in Windows 3.1, by going to ProgMan's About box and Ctrl-Shift-Clicking the Windows logo X amount of times, you could trigger an "easter egg", one screen of which was a flag waving with the Windows logo on it. Another of which was a credits scroll with a cartoon figure that had one of four faces: Gates, Ballmer, the Windows dev lead at the time (I forget who but he had a beard); and a creepy looking teddy bear (some sort of internal mascot for the Windows division).

Good times.

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