Microsoft's new retro-flavoured logo channels Channel 4 Microsoft has redrawn its corporate logo for the first time since the 1980s in a move likely to have the web boiling over its significance. Out is the fluttering Windows flag with Microsoft spelled using a bold black typeface and the "o" slashed by the "s". In is a four-piece square that looks like a Simon memory game, with " …
I suspect the fundamental problem is the nonsensical way we teach children about colour.
For example, “Roy G. Biv” is a lousy way to describe the colours we see, because it conflicts with colour nomenclature. Either it omits cyan, or calls cyan, 'blue' and blue, 'indigo'. It also completely omits magenta, since it only addresses spectral colours.
Magenta is missing; magenta is the emission of red and blue-stimulus photons simultaneously. This can also be accomplished by absorption of green photons from full-spectrum ambient light, which is what magenta ink does.
Until one understands colourspace, and how additive and subtractive colour work, and arguably also how colour spaces are defined, it's hard to generalise laws that depend on colour perception.
Simpler, more abstract ideas about colour lead to design decision ambiguity. Individual designers don't follow consistent rules. Two designers, working independently on the same assignment, will have different final results. That's okay in my books.
Search for "roy g. biv song" on YouTube; you'll see tons of educational songs, including one by They Might Be Giants — which was the original source of my complaint. They are exceptional in kids' music in that (a) they are educational, (b) the music doesn't suck and (c) they nearly always get their facts straight and they value scientific integrity. So this song, on a DVD of science-related tracks, was disappointing for me because they describe the colour spectrum without relating it to how we see colour and with misleading colour names (which Richard of York uses as well).
Our eyes may be approximately RGB sensors, but our brain's visual processing interprets colour differently to this. Colour Opponency is one of the theories that tries to describe the processing of colour, and also explain why, for example, Red and Green are perceived to be more "opposite" from each other than Red and Blue, which actually are furthest apart on the spectrum.
By examining at which colours "fight" each other when put side by side, the Colour Opponent Theory yields four "natural" colours: Green and its opposite, Red; Yellow and its opposite, Blue, plus black and white. ( see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process )
Most graphic designers will have encountered this theory at college, or will be aware of colour opponency though experience, hence the recurrence of these shades whenever companies ask for "bold colours" in a design. (The old striped Apple logo just added orange and purple to the basic four shades)
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"This wave of new releases is not only a re-imagining of our most popular products, but also represents a new era for Microsoft, so our logo should evolve to visually accentuate this new beginning," Hanson said.
The box "is important in a world of digital motion" while the little squares of colour are "intended to express the company's diverse portfolio of products".
Jeezus, it totally stinks of sage in here. Somebody open a window.
...Jesus H. Tap-Dancing CHRIST. Did they pay actual money for this? Oh, who am I kidding; I'm sure they did -- well into six figures, at the very least. Not bad money for about ten minutes' work.
Hell, it looks like they didn't even have to use an actual drawing application to do it, either, or even spend any time trying out different fonts. It looks like it was done by a design department intern, right there in the client meeting, on a laptop with the drawing tools in Word, and the fonts that came installed with it.
I almost feel sorry for Microsoft these days; seems they just can't stop stepping in it.
Here's a house, here's a door.
Windows: 3.1, XP, 7, 8, ready to knock?
Turn the lock - It's the Play School developers.
"One of our three magic windows (c) (tm) can open wide to show both town and countryside, let's go through the . . . . . . . . . . . .Square window. . . . . . . . . . OH MY GOD!!!, it's hideous!!!!!"
You MS haters make me laugh. If it wasn't MS it'd be someone else.
So, they've changed their logo. So what? Looks more modern if you ask me! And who cares how much it cost? I don't!
And anyway, many of you haters are probably sat there in your sandals and socks, so what would you know about design or "fashion"!!! :)
YeaRight
Whatever!
You MS haters make me laugh. If it wasn't MS it'd be someone else.
So, they've changed their logo. So what? Looks more modern if you ask me! And who cares how much it cost? I don't!
And anyway, many of you haters are probably sat there in your sandals and socks, so what would you know about design or "fashion"!!! :)
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And you Microsoft astroturfing shills make my toes laugh. Recently registered on the 23rd August 2012 for a snarky retort on your virgin post?
I hope you're paid well for your efforts.
(Pasted your comment at the top, just in case you decide to sneakily delete it.)
It's not that new at all. The logo is the same as the outlook 2007 categorise icon except a flatter and possibly a couple of the colours switch around.
There's not that much you can do with those colors when creating a relatively simple logo I guess. Unless they want to copy google poke-ball / simon says logo.
Sure, whatever. And Debian is BSD-like.
The typeface that Segoe is, um, reminiscent of is Adrian Frutiger's eponymous "Frutiger" (UK residents will recognise Frutiger from its use as the corporate typeface of the NHS, but its first use was as signage for Charles de Gaulle airport)
While we're at it, this isn't the first time Frutiger has been allegedly "appropriated": the designers of what is now Apple's corporate typeface (Myriad Pro, by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly for Adobe -- it's the default font in Adobe Illustrator) were also accused of shamelessly ripping off Frutiger.
In any case, the amount you have to change a font by to be considered a "new" face is only about 5%, and it's very easy to hide this in the punctuation, i-dots, and symbols... or the tail of the capital Q
Cinema goes 3D, Microsoft goes 2D
Augmented Reality adds information rich overlays on our 3D world, Microsoft goes flat
Subtle light and shading on realtime mapping, Microsoft goes primary... er, colours
Way to buck the trends Microsoft
And I'm not a MS hating anything - running Win8 now, with a ClassicShell plugin 'cause ModernUI sucks donkey balls, but I've been a windows advocate from version 3.1. I just haven't buried my head in the sand, nor do I think it's any kind of a good design... Tablets and PCs are different! Viva la difference!
Hmmm, right before launching a new OS that is already being regarded as Vista II?
Why not spend an obscene amount on a new logo?
That said, I would have loved to have had the contract to design.... a SQUARE, then smoke top-grade hash for 4 weeks solid to come up with the accompanying design justification and marketing burble.
Yep, mine's the pint.... of absinthe.
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