10 ms·
Dear everybody, Are you paying attention? This is how you build a portfolio. Did microsoft ask this person to do this? No. But he did it, and it's brillian
by blhack 14y ago
Dear everybody,
Are you paying attention? This is how you build a portfolio. Did microsoft ask this person to do this?
No. But he did it, and it's brilliant, and now he can put it in his portfolio under "speculative work".
And then he gets a job doing this.
I can't tell you how many people I talk to (I live in a college town, and frequently go to bars and strike up conversations with people) who just finished, or are working on, some degree in "design", but have an empty portfolio, and are waiting for their "big shot".
Good job, Andrew.
Totally rebranding the window to the "slate" is incredibly ambitious, but it certainly looks good.
- kpennell 14y ago2nd this!
- ShawnBird 14y agoIf you click the triangle next to the username it will 'upvote' the comment and help get it to the top. Replies have no effect on rank so there is really no reason to reply unless you have something to add.
- ancymon 14y agoIf you click triangle pointing downwards next to the username it will 'downvote' the comment and help make it "invisible". Replies have no effect on rank so there is really no reason to reply unless you have something to add.
- ericson578 14y agocan someone make this into a meme already, reading is so tiresome.
- brittohalloran 14y agommmm I think you're thinking of StackOverflow. No down triangles here
- runn1ng 14y agoYou need to have certain karma (or how is it called here) to be able to downvote.
- brittohalloran 14y agoHahah touche, -4 on that post. My bad. HN is so mysterious
- sp332 14y agoUpvoting a comment is an anonymous and nearly invisible action. The only way to show visible support for a comment is to reply to it.
- omgsean 14y agoAt that point you're not adding anything to the conversation though, it's just noise. If you want to add vocal support to a comment you should at least expand on the points they brought up or provide some of your own reasoning.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- wilfra 14y agoIt's ironic you would make this post while at the same time participating in the addition of a bunch of noise to an otherwise pretty great thread.
- yaix 14y agoWhat you call "visible support" is really only "polluting the comments". "Me too" posts just fill up the comments with text without substance. See also: * Feb 1983 First "Me too" post (http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html)
- doorhammer 14y agoI read everything leading to this.
- sp332 14y agoOn Disqus, Google+, Facebook, and most other sites supporting "likes", you can see who upvoted your comment. But this site is missing that built-in functionality.
- 14y ago
- noblethrasher 14y agoHi, Welcome to Hacker News. If you get a chance, check out the welcome letter (http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html) which explicitly states that empty comments are okay as long as they're positive.
- martinalejandro 14y agoI think all the replies to that comment are actually making more noise that the comment itself.
- potatolicious 14y agoThis can go either way. Remember when dcurtis did a unsolicited spec redesign for the American Airlines website? We here at HN tore him a new one (justifiably so, it ignored so many critical aspects of the business, and came off as entirely impractical). When you do something like this, you better be sure you nail every single angle of it. FWIW, I normally hate spec redesigns - they're usually positioned in a pompous, "I know better than everyone", self-aggrandizing way. But this one I really like, this one strikes a chord.
- pchristensen 14y agoHN criticized, but I've heard "the guy who redesigned American's website" referenced in several times from several sources. It spread, it got him a reputation, it gave him a brand! Dustin Curtis is now recognizable in any kind of design discussion. I've never heard of minimallyminimal, but I'll remember "the guy who rebranded Microsoft" for a long time.
- the-cakeboss 14y agoHe may be recognizable in a design discussion on HN, but hardly out of this context. Same goes for this guy. That of course is not to say that these sorts of efforts should be avoided, but I do think you are overestimating their impact.
- wilfra 14y agoI think you are underestimating the impact of being well known on HN for something like that. Nearly everybody who matters reads this site at least sometimes.
- chris_wot 14y agoNearly everyone who matters reads this site at least sometimes and might possibly come across a discussion about a 3 year old article.
- mehulkar 14y agoAny ideas how to promote this kind of initiative in students?
- blhack 14y agoAre you allowed to give your students assignments that involve redesigning existing brands? I did not go to school for design, so I really have no idea if this is allowed, but what would happen if you told the students that their assignment was to create an ad for Nike? I'd jump at something like that.
- imaan988 14y agoOr if you can't do that, tell them to invent a competitor and brand that?
- blhack 14y agoI don't think that works as well. Doing an ad for nike feels cool, and you get to brag about it on your facebook page.
- cdcarter 14y agoIt's, in fact, fairly common. Some companies even go so far as to ally with the AAF and other organizations for national competitions.
- mturmon 14y agoHere's some example student projects from a leading design school: http://www.artcenter.edu/accd/gallery.jsp http://www.artcenter.edu/accd/gallery.jsp Refresh a couple times to see more. Many are commercial, and some of those are for established brands.
- mehulkar 14y agoIt's not the assignment that matters, it's the initiative that matters. Giving students the assignment to do something awesome isn't any different from giving them an assignment to do something ordinary.
- ekianjo 14y agoWhere does the Xbox fit in this New Microsoft, though ? There was no mention of it, while it's become a big part of Microsoft business over the years.
- brsim 14y agoThe Xbox user interface has been changing to look similar to the new "Windows 8 style" recently. I think you could easily take one of the proposed "Slate" images, duplicate and flip it, then overlay it over the original to make an "X" shape. That would create a nice fresh brand image for the next generation of xbox's and fit in with the proposed brand redesign as a whole.
- ekianjo 14y agoYeah but why was it not even mentioned in the whole brand redesign ? Xbox is clearly NOT a windows branded product, it stands on its own and should have been part of the "New Microsoft" brand image.
- brsim 14y agoI agree the Xbox brand should stand separate of Windows overall. The author did show an image of the Xbox + Kinekt at the beginning but focused on showing the new branding on a laptop later. Perhaps he simply ran out of time or thought it would be obvious that the same branding would be used?
- jarnold 14y agoMy first response was-- hum... I should ping this guy and see if he's free for some branding work.
- einhverfr 14y agoIndeed. I was looking at the progression of logos and realizing "wow, this guy gets it." The visual aspects, the promotional aspects, etc. just go together in a visually appealing, functional, and attention-commanding way.
- Ewoks4life 14y agoYeah, but it's pretentious as hell and is impractical.
- exDM69 14y agoA couple of guys from my uni did the same with Apple. They designed a whole new UI design for a touchscreen device. They sent it to Apple and it eventually reached Steve J. who politely said their design sucks.
- adaml_623 14y agoWas the feedback from Jobs, 'Not to my taste' or 'This is what's wrong with your design' or 'Not where Apple wants to do' or 'It sucks'? Chinese whispers is a sad thing when it turns a potential insight into an anecdote.
- exDM69 14y agoDon't really know the specifics on the response. But the best part for the guys was probably getting feedback from Steve Jobs, even if it was negative. Probably a good learning experience.
- idspispopd 14y agoWhen putting together speculative work, it's best to avoid big companies - it's like trying to rebrand Christmas, everyone has their own idea. Microsoft already has huge creative endeavours, trying to compete with that is a folly (Christmas example above.) Instead the designer can shine by showing how they can invigorate 'boring' brands, how they can elevate the mundane to fantastic. This on the other hand doesn't look any better than what MS already does. Where do you want to go today?
- commandar 14y ago>Instead the designer can shine by showing how they can invigorate 'boring' brands, how they can elevate the mundane to fantastic. Microsoft is about as close as you can get to the very definition of a "boring" brand, and has been for some time. They're a well-known brand, absolutely, but it's hard to find anyone that's excited about them as a company.
- idspispopd 14y agoThey certainly are boring. The problem is that they have had high moments in the past which is what this designer is competing with. They should take a brand that has always been boring and make it shine.
- commandar 14y ago>The problem is that they have had high moments in the past which is what this designer is competing with. When? I'm asking that seriously. They've always been pervasive, but I can remember at least as far back as the late DOS/Win 3.11 era, and I can't recall any point in that span where they've been a "cool" brand. The Xbox is about the closest thing I can think of, but that's always felt like some weird thing Microsoft did that happened to work out cool than anything that defined Microsoft as a brand. They're nowhere near as bad today as the mid-late 90s when every story about Microsoft on Slashdot was accompanied by a photoshopped borgified Bill Gates, but they really could use a shot in the arm branding wise. The Metro stuff they're doing now is distinctive, but there isn't really any driving philosophy to the marketing at this point. I think the linked article does a great job of providing it that. That said, many of Microsoft's problems have as much to do with management as anything. I'm pretty much convinced they're going to continue to flounder as long as Ballmer remains CEO. You could have the best branding campaign ever devised and it's going to be worthless if there's nothing worthwhile driving the company behind that brand.
- hef19898 14y agoRemembers me of the proposed HP revamp that never was. But where HP was great, this one is just plain brilliant. Microsoft, hire that guy and use his concept!