Microsoft unveils bland, blue Windows 8 logo

Microsoft said Friday that it dramatically redesigned the Windows 8 logo to make it more like, well, a window.

When the Windows 8 team was working to create a logo that would sum up the Windows 8 product and the Metro design experience, designer Paula Scher of the Pentagram design firm turned to the Windows executives in the room and asked them: “Your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?”

And thus the new logo was born.

Sam Moreau, principal director of user experience for Microsoft, said in a blog post that the new Windows 8 logo was approached with a few key goals in mind: to make the new logo “modern and classic” by echoing the International Typographic Style that has influenced the Metro style; to be “authentically digital” and not mirror a “materiality” style such as faux wood or glass; and to be humble, yet confident.

Moreau said that the subtleties of the Windows Vista and Windows 7 logo, with its intricate, glass-like lighting effects, were tossed out with the Windows 8 logo redesign, to bring it back to its roots.

In fact, Microsoft’s Moreau said that many of the design elements were pulled from the original Windows 1.0 logo (below), a design few probably remember, he said.

“‘Windows’ really is a beautiful metaphor for computing and with the new logo we wanted to celebrate the idea of a window, in perspective,” Moreau wrote. “Microsoft and Windows are all about putting technology in people’s hands to empower them to find their own perspectives. And that is what the new logo was meant to be. We did less of a re-design and more to return it to its original meaning and bringing Windows back to its roots – reimagining the Windows logo as just that – a window.”

It really is a dramatic redesign. What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments.

Microsoft is expected to unveil a consumer preview of Windows 8 at Mobile World Congress later this month.