“Tech giant Microsoft has revamped its corporate logo for the first time in 25 years. The new design was unveiled this week and has received a range of criticism online,” Jason Fell reports for Entrepreneur. “Some describe the new logo as clean and simple, while others are calling it an outright failure.”
“Among those who think Microsoft’s new logo leaves a lot to be desired is longtime graphic designer John Williams, founder of Nashville, Tenn.-based do-it-yourself logo-creation website LogoGarden.com,” Fell reports. “Williams explains how he thinks Microsoft dropped the ball with its new design and offers advice on how the rest of us can create better company logos.”
• Pick a font that fits your design
• Pick a symbol that looks great even when printed in black and white
• Make sure your font and symbol are a good match
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Zanus” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Microsoft launches new logo – August 23, 2012
I think the new logo fully represents and describes the company in one fell swoop.
It’s devoid of taste, style and panache… PERFECT!
It has been pointed out by font geeks how much the font. “Segoe” used in the new Microsoft logotype resembles the font “Myriad Pro”, Apple’s corporate branding font.
http://www.andrewbrettwatson.com/index.php/apple2/162-new-microsoft-logo-looks-like-apple-corporate-font
Microsoft, ever the follower, never the leader.
You are right! Compare this logo to the “Next” logo…!
I tell you what is wrong with that logo… the squares and the word “microsoft”, the rest is fine.
I agree, but who cares? It’s not like anything MS actually matters.
Just about the most uninspired design that Microsoft could possibly have come up with. Kudos to Microsoft for choosing a new logo that matches their corporate culture so perfectly!
It’s a dead, boring, blah design! Oh it’s designed by Microsoft! Go figure!
Dude! You got a dell!
They probably paid someone millions of Dollars to come up with that logo.
As a designer of things like this, I can say with some authority that sometimes I will throw in a “mulligan” designed to be cast-off in the process of leading the client to the design that I want them to choose…
And sometimes, much to my chagrin, they pick the butt ugly one.
LOL!
I wonder if the designer in this case used the same tactic and is now bitterly regretting it. MS will no doubt use this logo for…well, for as long as they remain in business, is my guess. At least I hope they do!
What’s to regret? Did the check clear? It did? Then they picked a fabulous design. Case closed. As long as I can keep my Apple.
I think you have the answer! I have had clients pick the dud, too!
Keep in mind the designer was probably forced to produce that garbage… Remember, the customer is always right.
The new logo is simply emblematic of MS past and present.
Nothing groundbreaking.
Never had it never will.
Microsoft never had good taste.
Microsoft never had a clue.
“Pick a symbol that looks great even when printed in black and white”
And just how many times do you really think Microsoft is printing its logo in black and white? Certainly not in any of its promo pieces, and certainly not on any web pages, emails, etc.
That’s solid advice for a small business, or from 10 years ago. But it’s also off the cuff, basic standard graphic design advice given to people who aren’t paying for your design services.
Wrong, actually. It has to work in black and white for all sorts of applications – such as when it appears on product labels or embossed into plastic.
This logo looks like Steve Ballmer himself redesigned it. Or worse, an internal competition. I can just imagine the brief – The Apple logo is bold, simple, modern, so we need to simplify ours. Except they equated simplification with removing any interest. And those colours – what a disaster.
If Ballmer himself had designed it then the word MICROSOFT would be written many times over, using a red crayon held in the fist, and all in capital letters. It would have at least one spelling mistake and several sweaty smudges.
Most logo designers I know are required by contract to produce a color and black and white version.
At least when you pulled this B S out of there, it left more room for your head. 😉
Way off base. Standard craft corrugate boxes as as common now as they were forty years ago. The vast majority with identity are printed in black and white. In addition, white papers and other ultra-dry literature is often created intentionally in black and white. Ghosted white logos are often used as a background element over a photo. As for video, ghosted logos are usually monochromatic as well and monochromatic logos are often used for masks for FX work.
Although I don’t like it, there is nothing technically wrong with Microsoft’s logo. It’s what they want it to be, and that’s good enough for me. These back seat drivers can stuff it.
Go look at that guy’s website LogoGarden.com, he’s no Picasso.
Hey, that’s what Apple did with the Mac logo, they sought inspiration from Picasso!
Though I don’t like Microsoft, I have no issues with the logo… seems clean and simple and I get the squares thingy!
I still feel that a sinking ship would be a more appropriate logo!
Uh? Who is sinking? Still a great American company and appear to be reengaged. Trust me Apple Execs do not think the way you do as they know that Microsoft is still very much a force to reckon with and will never suggest that as you put it that they are “sinking”.
I get the squares, not a big fan of the font, the M looks very elementary school, the kerning seems off too, the letters seem to get closer as you get to the combined ft. So, the blocks act as the anchor, you naturally begin to read the name but feel hurried at the end… That is microsoft, they nailed it.
It works fine as a logo. The color squares can all be B&W and the grey text can also be B&W.
No big deal, let’s find something more interesting already.
Your right, this is fits Microsoft perfectly.
how about don’t pick such ugly muddy colors?
you can see four squared logo everywhere! i hope miscrosoft just think out of the box and be unique.
I’m happy to see Microsoft’s new logo as a longtime AAPL shareholder. May Ballmer remain CEO as long as it takes.
I guess the new “symbol” (which is just a “flattened” version the old “curvy” symbol) is supposed to be a bunch of bathroom tiles, to reflect the new Metro interface.
I think the second point about a symbol looking good when printed in black and white is very important. The new Microsoft symbol will look like four black squares. Apple’s symbol is immediately recognizable, ESPECIALLY in black and white.
If the MS logo design department did that on a Mac, it would be the first time a computer was waterboarded! I thought we did away with torture.
If Apple can patent the rectangle, then Microsoft can have the square. 😉
I live the white background. The rest I don’t care for.
It fails the Samsung Test meaning Samsung won’t copy it so therefore it must be shit.
Wow ‘Really’. I’m really amused! There may be hope for you yet. Now cut the anonymous coward routine and declare thyself!
Their managers realized that Microsoft is sort of a cult, and its followers are blind believers. Because of this they decided the logo better look like a church Logo (with a cross).
I think that it ‘s fine. what’s wrong really? Apple logo should be rotten already. I am sick of their action nowadays. apple will be fallen faster. the company, which seeks for lawsuit, try to monopolize business, shall die quickly. nobody like this guy.
Oh do STFU and take your ignorant trolling elsewhere. If you’re going to criticize Apple, MAKE SENSE.
Obviously, we Apple fanatics are Apple’s harshest critics. But to pull unsupportable BS lines like ‘seeks lawsuit’ and ‘monopolize business’ and the old Apple death knell canard ‘shall die quickly’ makes you look a total twit. BZZZZZT! You FAIL!
Hey MS did an awesome job. I mean those squares with the colors are all perfectly aligned and the same exact size. Thats amazing!
It’s as if they wanted to create something that looked retrograde compared to their previous logo.
√ successfully retrograde
New Joke #2:
New Joke #3:
New Joke #4:
New Joke #5:
√ outright failure
Who did the logo for Microsoft? The guys who did the new GAP logo? (which has since been retracted).
http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/08/news/companies/gap_logo/index.htm
I think the four colourful squares are really, really, very nice and really pretty and square.
When Microsoft licensed some of the IOS functionality from Apple (rather than steal it), perhaps as part of the provision to not copy the IOS GUI, it prohibited them from using rounded corners on their squares of their logo too? Hmmm….Screenshots of their new OS show it to have lots of sharp square corners (XBOX already does square UI).
In the think different campaign, we heard the phrase…’How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? ‘
Looks like Ballmer stared at the canvas for a long long time!
oh yeah and another thing wrong with it–they didn’t even come close to any Apple patents–HOW THE HELL IS APPLE SUPPOSED TO SUE THEM NOW?!?!?!?
I like their strategy. I like it a lot.
Microsoft = Macroboring
The logo is totally flat-footed. No doubt the designer(s) submitted a ton of great stuff but in the end it is the company leadership – not the marketing experts who actually know what they are doing in communicating an image, but the starched collared administrators – who made the decision.
The window colors are preexistent but when taken along with the typeface, represent what the stuffed shirts think of as fresh and free-thinking. If a psychotherapist were to appraise it, I think they would see a lack of imagination, an anal-retentive quality and more than a little self-deception. Adding air is a gesture. I would think that this is the quality of a person who is stands out from the group by wearing a cornflower blue pocket protector instead of a white one.