Microsoft Unveils New Logo

A few quick reactions:

  • The four-pane thing used to be the Windows logo; now it’s the logo for the whole company. Windows, Windows, Windows, Windows.
  • Very similar in color palette to Google, especially Chrome. Now, Microsoft has been using the (clockwise from top left) red-green-yellow-blue squares at least since Windows 3.1 back in 1992, so I’m not saying Microsoft is copying or following Google here. I’m just saying if you put this logo next to Chrome’s, it’s hard not to notice they’re pretty much the exact same colors.
  • The perfectly square corners (echoed throughout Metro) are very different from Apple’s roundrects everywhere ethos.
  • The logotype is set using Segoe, the same font the company uses for its advertising, packaging, and the Windows 8 system UI. Cf. my footnote last week speculating that Apple might use Myriad as the system font in Mac OS X (or even iOS?) — which speculation presupposes that Apple could work out a licensing deal with their good friends at Adobe, who I’m sure harbor no hard feelings over the whole “Thoughts on Flash” thing.

★ Thursday, 23 August 2012