Microsoft Unveils First New Company Logo In 25 Years

Barence writes "For the first time in 25 years, Microsoft has issued a new company logo to usher in the Windows 8 era. Made up of a newly square Windows symbol alongside grey Microsoft logo type, it's been designed to closely match the logos for other products in Microsoft's portfolio, including Office and Xbox. The logo takes pride of place on Microsoft.com from today, and will be used in Microsoft's retail stores and on all future TV ads."

Comments

poor

[Anonymous Coward]

there is no dollar sign in there.

Re:poor

[xevioso]

One of the interesting things about this is the amount of money spent to create this logo. It probably runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Internally, they probably went through multiple design revisions, followed by multiple meetings on how the logo should look and what the brand "evokes", followed by multiple meetings at the very top of the company to confirm these findings. And that's if it was done internally; if they hired an agency to do this it could easily have cost them millions.

All for something I could have done with Powerpoint.

Re:poor

[rolfwind]

Good simple logos are hard to do. Look at FedEx. That needed an all new font just to get the subtle symbolism.

And simple is the right direction. If you look at art or old magazines, the designs of illustrations go from a type of baroque, all curvy and overdetailed to ever more simplified.

The problem with the new logo isn't that it's simple, it's that it's generic. The four colors always were. Google and eBay has similiar colors by now (although they incorporate it into the name itself). I think Microsft has the most generic logo out there for a major corporation and without the "Microsoft" next to it, most people wouldn't be able to place it -- unlike, say, a Mercedes Star or some such.

Re:poor

[Jeng]

All for something I could have done with Powerpoint.

Piece of chalk $0.05
Knowing where to make the mark $5000

The tools used does not determine the difficulty of the project.

Re:poor

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there was a glitch in the organization: developers ended up designing the logo and designers ended up developing Windows 8.

Looks like Metro tiles

[GameboyRMH]

Next best thing to putting Clippy in there, I guess.

Re:Looks like Metro tiles

[overmoderated]

Paint is such a nice program.

Re:Looks like Metro tiles

[infodragon]

“People liked NASCAR because the constant crashes made it exciting, and this gave me an idea...”
            -- Bill Gates on Microsoft Windows

Another brilliant idea, change the look of your brand as the exciting crash of the company begins.

For those of you not able to tell, this is my terrible attempt at humor.

Re:Looks like Metro tiles

[Anonymous Coward]

They had to change because Apply has the property rights for round corners...

Re:Looks like Metro tiles

[Anonymous Coward]

"People liked NASCAR because the constant crashes made it exciting, and this gave me an idea..."
                        -- Bill Gates on Microsoft Windows

"You Can't Believe Most of the Quotes You Read On the Internet"
            -- Abraham Lincoln

Better Article

[Bill Dimm]

This article shows a history of Microsoft's logos.

Re:Better Article

[sam_paris]

Call me crazy but I think this is really a case of "different strokes for different folks." And in general it seems that anything Microsoft does gets criticized at Slashdot. I mean. I've been a member here since 2006 and lurked long before then and I don't recall many instances of people praising anything they've done, so this comment is very unsurprising.

That said, I actually like this logo (yes, feel free to mod me +funny). I think that simple and flat shading evokes modernity and that trying to be fancy and use gradients or otherwise trying to make things pop-out or use 3D-ish looking elements is on its way out.

As far as boring goes, we are talking about a large software company that makes most it's money of licensing software for big business, it's not a games studio or a high-octane energy drink company, the logo was never going to be neon green with a lightning flash. I wouldn't call Apple, Google, or Facebook's logos exciting either, they are functional. These companies live or die based on their products, not their logos.

Re:Better Article

[girlintraining]

Bah. Pentagram made a Windows 8 logo. Look at the one on their own homepage by Paula Scher, their lead designer and goddess in the design world -- monochrome, baby blue, sans serif font, angled rectangles. That looked modern.

Logos are supposed to look simple, they're symbols; and should be easily recognizable and (ideally) capable of being used in black and white. Anyone who's taken a semester of graphic design classes could tell you that much.

And don't say companies don't live or die based on their logos: Brand identity is what separates Pepsi from Coke. I won't get into the research and market data that says how important this is, but it is and you're making a huge mistake to think otherwise.

Re:Better Article

[A Friendly Troll]

I'm saying this as a graphic designer too ... kerning on the text at the end (they overlapped the crossbar on the 'f' and 't')

I don't want to be a dick, but that's not kerning, that's a ligature, and it's been present in various scripts for about five thousand years (seriously). Furthermore, neither 'f' nor 't' have crossbars; they have cross strokes.

Either Microsoft stole it from this guy

[Spy Handler]

http://www.bestlookinglogos.com/2009/07/four-square-logo/

or they paid him $50 for it

Re:Either Microsoft stole it from this guy

[Bill Dimm]

Hey, rounded corners make all the difference. You should know that by now.

Yeah, it's a crap logo

[jollyreaper]

To be expected. What I want to know is:
a) How much time did they spend on this?
b) How much money did they spend on it?

Anything north of 12 months and $50 mil, I'll be suitably disgusted and impressed. 24 months and $100 mil, they deserve some kind of fail award.

Unimaginative

[ReptileQc]

Apparently this is the "less is more" philosophy... but at the same time, it is plain and unimaginative. Isn't it bad for a company that aims to prove that they can reinvent themselves?

... and made with MS Paint

[schwep]

Really? This looks like the last thing you drew before you thought, "I should try out the circle brush."

Re:Stop laughing

[Jeng]

This is Microsoft you are talking about here.

This was designed by multiple committees each of which would only support their own design.

After 3 months of deliberations Balmer sat in on a committee meeting and determined the winner by lining up the different executives that ran each committee and then started throwing chairs at them. The last one standing won.

Logo for Microsoft, not MS

[tepples]

there is no dollar sign in there.

Of course there isn't. The logotype part is "Microsoft", not "MS". The dollar sign, an homage to Microsoft's roots as a BASIC interpreter publisher, comes in only when you abbreviate it as M$.

10 M$ = "Microsoft"
20 PRINT M$;" is a monopolist"

Re:Logo for Microsoft, not MS

[operagost]

No, no! You have to save that change for later. You change the GOTO 10 to GOTO 20 and release it in the new version as a "performance enhancement".

Yes there is...

[SuperKendall]

there is no dollar sign in there.

If you watch the video introducing the logo, you'll note that three of the colors represent broad categories of Microsoft - Blue is Windows, Red is Office, and Green is XBox.

So what's the color remaining they didn't provide an explicit mapping for in the video?

Gold.

Well played, Microsoft.