For the first time in a quarter of a century, Microsoft today unveiled its new logo. It comes a few weeks after Microsoft dismissed reports that it would be updating its corporate identity, although as Neowin revealed today, this 'new' logo isn't quite as new as it first appears.
As many of our readers will know, the unveiling of this logo is one of the final major components of a comprehensive branding overhaul extending across almost the entire Microsoft Corporation. Out go the complex, multi-coloured, gradient-filled logos of yesteryear, replaced with one-color logos that scale beautifully from tiny icons to vast billboards. The new Microsoft logo itself appears to be the only one of the new generation that features more than one colour at a time; even Bing's logo has received a mild tweak to make it monochromatic.
This is surely one of the largest brand update programmes in corporate history, given Microsoft's extraordinary size and global reach, and with so many new logos coming in the door, and old ones flying out the window, we thought it would be helpful to put together an at-a-glance overview of how Microsoft's new brand family is shaping up.
While most of the updated brands now feature Microsoft's corporate font, Segoe, some have - so far at least - escaped that fate. Skype and Bing are the most notable holdouts; in the recent Windows 8 Skype application that we recently revealed here on Neowin, the existing Skype logo appears to have been untouched (aside from being having its highlights and gradients removed), while the registration page for Microsoft's BUILD developer event at the end of October - a few days after Windows 8 officially launches - included a Bing logo that was unchanged apart from its colour.
The graphic below doesn't represent an exhaustive list of Microsoft's updated brands by any means, but if you think we've missed out any particularly big fish that should be included here, let us know in the comments below.
For now, welcome to the Metro-style Windows 8-style Modern modern new Microsoft.
Graphic updated to include Skype and Microsoft Dynamics logos.
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