Microsoft’s New Logo
For the first time in a quarter century, Microsoft has unveiled a new logo.
The new logo is essentially a simplified and straightened version of the Windows logo, consisting of four equally sized squares of red, green, blue, and yellow. Gone are the curves, the gradient fills, and the drop shadows.
According to the official Microsoft blog, the new logo is meant to mark a new era for Microsoft, in conjunction with new releases of Windows, Office, Xbox, and the Windows phone. The four squares are meant to “express the company’s diverse portfolio of products.” In the video below, you can see that blue represents Windows, red equals Office, and green equates to Xbox. But what about yellow? Although it isn’t shown in the video, one can probably assume that yellow represents Bing, as the same color is used to dot the i in the Bing logo, and for the Bing favicon.
The logotype is set in the font Segoe, developed by Monotype and licensed by Microsoft for a wide range of branding and user interface applications.
At the Microsoft News Center, you can check out and download the full range of company and product logos, including a tidy round-up of Microsoft’s logo history.
So what do you think? Is this a successful new look for Microsoft’s new era?
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Yeesh. Talk about lifeless. Add two rectangles and it can be fabricated into a coffin. And that suits me just fine. R.I.P. Microsoft. Whatever happened to timeless and memorable?
Somebody or some agency did it right? In house design…?
Did anyone tell Microsoft this looks an awful lot like Frutiger or -gasp- Myriad…the Apple corporate font since 2002? Are they trying to differentiate themselves? Why don’t they show the old Windows logo on their timeline? Wasn’t this an official logo before now?
Somebody, an agency, inhouse?
Better
Is always copying other prior to those. Just when copy OS feel from Apple, from Xerox, or font used in 70 and 80’s business. I was keep 87 logo, just a little bit change on color and maybe a set of color cirles, very tiny around “M”. I dont know I just imagine…
hoping this new logo, minimal looking ,will work better for windows 8
Staid, square and turning gray! What more could be said, other than it would have been really hot in the early 1960s.
I think it’s a successful a logo design as you’re likely to see. It’s a tweak rather than a rebrand, but should be more versatile. It reflects the current trend toward cleaner, more simplified logo design.
Amen