Microsoft Logo Posters
In celebration of Microsoft’s 45th anniversary, we worked with DeepShape to create a series of posters featuring previous Microsoft logos. Each poster amplified a design detail that made that particular logo memorable.
We were also excited to bring movement to these creations. These are seamless loops that revealed the true construction behind each of the designs.
Microsoft’s first logo was introduced in 1975 and is described by tech logo historians as the “groovy” or “disco” Microsoft logo. The logo itself was developed by Microsoft’s first technical writer Andrea Lewis.
The logo was created using the “ITC AKI Lines” font, designed by Akihiko Seki and released in 1970. Aki lines was just one of many lined, or striped, fonts produced in, and still associated with, the 70’s. These styles were popularized in graphic design by Letraset dry transfer rub down lettering and emerging phototypesetting technology
As Ars Technica wrote in 2012 this was “a short-lived logo that was just a spurious umlaut away from being a heavy metal band” The logo was used concurrently with the original logo, and was developed to represent a new Microsoft Consumer Products brand aimed at non-developers.
It is sometimes referred to as the heavy metal or Metallica logo, but actually pre-dates the band by more than a year.
On 25 June 1982 Microsoft unveiled a new logo, still set in all caps in stark geometric font. The defining feature of the new logo was a distinctive middle “O” which was dubbed the “Blibbet.” The logo was designed by David Strong of the David Strong Design Group, a Seattle design agency. David also designed the original plastic case product packaging for Microsoft.
The Blibbet treatment was relatively popular among tech companies, evident in logos ranging from the Saul Bass 1984 AT&T “Death Star” through to Paul Rand’s 1972 IBM logo makeover.
In March 1987 Microsoft unveiled a new design that would serve as the company logo for the next 25 years.
Although Microsoft hired an outside agency to develop preliminary work, the logo itself was designed by in house Director of Creative Design Scott Baker. The so-called “Pac-Man Logo” has a notch on the ‘O’ reminiscent of the video game character, hence the nickname.
The new logo also represented a break from the all caps style of the earlier logos, using upper and lower case letters
Thank you!
Thanks to DeepYellow for collaborating with us in the creation of these designs and animations.
Thanks to Phil Evans, Andrew Falk, Alexis Copeland and Anthony Neil Dart on my team for contributing lots of ideas for the final poster layout.