“The experiment: in 3 days, update Microsoft’s branding and messaging.” Impressive effort by Andrew Kim. Focusses on branding, products, advertising, packaging, messages, and a lot of other stuff.
“The experiment: in 3 days, update Microsoft’s branding and messaging.” Impressive effort by Andrew Kim. Focusses on branding, products, advertising, packaging, messages, and a lot of other stuff.
For some reason I had portions of the ‘kill bill’ soundtrack running through my head as i was reading that.
Interesting. I actually would like that direction though since in my opinion/view google, apple and Microsoft are all the same, It wouldn’t do anything for my personal outlook on Microsoft.
In the consumer electronics world (where apple lives, and google and Microsoft are trying to tread), style and message does matter. (ask Sony)
“A promise made, a promise kept.”
Eh, why bother? Microsoft’s internal culture is not in line with this kind of empty promise.
Still impressive work. But absolutely not suited to Microsoft.
I think it fits well with the simplicity of Metro (as implemented in WP7, not W8 so far). Microsoft has done a great thing by taking the UI back to basic lines and flat, two-dimensional iconography. As long as they stick with that I’ll be happy.
Then again, I’m a Zen minded person so maybe it’s just people like me who see the appeal.
Oh, I like the branding, don’t trust the company being re-branded. They’d have to kick Balmer to the curve in order for anyone to believe the message.
In my opinion, to link ‘two-dimensional iconography’ with ‘Zen’ simplicity is by itself a misjudged notion. Microsoft and its designers are merely following a trend of minimalism which is as fashionable and ostentatious as Apple’s skeuomorphism and 7’s glass.
Simplicity can be achieved with conventional design elements. Traditional or common designs usually achieve a degree of simplicity just by virtue of their familiarity.
That’s not to say design shouldn’t evolve. But being able to distinguish between avante-garde and truly transformational would help in keeping an objective viewpoint.
What you call ostentatious, I call simple, quick and easy to use. When I first saw the advertisements for WP7 touting its quick and simple access to important information, I passed it off as the usual marketing fluff we’ve grown accustomed to from Microsoft. A year later, I finally tried a WP7 phone and was completely blown away by the interface. It was exactly what I had been looking for in a mobile OS.
I realize that it’s not for everyone, and market share numbers certainly reflect that, but for once it seems like Microsoft really gets it when it comes to good UI design.
I’m sorry, but it doesn’t get much simpler than plain text and line-art icons on monochromatic background colors. How much simpler does it have to become to differentiate it from the rampant skeuomorphism of iOS and Android in your eyes? The only thing simpler than the current Metro design would be a complete CLI interface, which ironically would drastically complicate the use of a phone for anything other than controlling a webserver remotely.
I’ll maintain that my preference for clean, simple, useful design meshes very well with my personal nature, despite your opinion on the meaning of Zen.
Concur. The slogan was the only part I felt didn’t work. The rest of the approach was sound.
You could argue that the MS culture is perfectly in tune with empty promises
I think it is always important to distinguish employees from a business and its strategy. Software Engineers are people with families. Some are jerks, some are nice no matter who they work to. If there is a problem with the company it is not because of its employees, it would be corporate strategy.
Ah yes, it’s always their fault, all because of the others.
It’s never about the conduct of employees, office politics that everybody engages in. And overall – systems of governance are never, ever, largely a reflection of their populations…
Couldn’t help but think of the Sword of Truth series when I saw that bit.
Did anyone notice the Windows 8 logo actually resembles the Windows 1.0 logo more than the other versions ?
I believe there was an article on one of the official Microsoft blogs about this. Something about the simplicity of the original logo inspired the new one.
And I just found the article:
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2012/0…
So it looked similair on purpose.
you start with one and end with the same.(well almost)
After all, the world ends soon.
Everything old, is new again.
Maybe it’s just me (and it probably is), but that new “slate” logo reminded me of Star Trek. Once my brain made that connection, it was red shirts all the way.
On the plus side, I think it’s an improvement. Job well done.
Are you saying you expect this to die on an away mission?
The colour vampires again!!
… write a good and secure software, instead o marketing mambo-jambo…
Windows 8 is supposed to have a MAC system designed by one of the developers of AppArmor. Chances are it will be pretty secure – probably better than Windows 7, and absurdly better than XP.
Usability, OTOH, is another matter. The Windows 95 desktop model may be “boring,” but it is tried and true, and there is plenty of room for improvement. Just throwing the whole thing out seems pretty stupid to me; especially seeing as Microsoft basically built their empire (which, I must repeat, encompasses almost 90% of desktop users) on conservative design decisions and incremental improvement.
Windows 7 is probably the first Windows release to have an actual fan base, as opposed to a bunch of grumpy users who just put up with it because there’s no alternative. Granted that MS is supporting it for quite a while yet, IMO they caught the lightning in the bottle with Win 7; and I think they’d be foolish to remove their focus from it, even in a temporary gamble. They may not have anything to lose in terms of money (yet!), but they have a lot to lose in terms of their reputation with the public.
Not really throwing out, it’s still there. BTW, Ribbon was also a dramatic change (one where it turned out MS was more or less right, or at least not really wrong). Windows 1&2 -> 3.x -> ~95, also quite big changes – and only the 2nd major revision (of the UI, with 3.x) was any good; by 3rd it took over.
So Metro might still surprise you.
You know what’s perhaps most telling about possible future viability of Metro, versus all the loud complaints about it now? That Win7, which is praised by everybody (what you yourself point out), is essentially merely VistaSE – that hated, rejected release – just with a marketing trick of “lucky 7”.
If the gamble of MS plays out, they will gain immensely (also in terms of money). Meanwhile, let’s be honest, people at worst will just continue using Win7 – just like they did with XP (and many still do! It has ~1/3 of worldwide web hits, that’s more than half a billion people; the “failure” Vista still has more than all OSX versions BTW, and that’s 10 times more than Linux)
PS. And rafaelnp is just a blinded buffoon… ( http://www.osnews.com/thread?506644 – not even really caring that much about OSS in general)
Edited 2012-07-10 23:23 UTC