Microsoft has updated the logos of its signature Office programs, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, to fit with the company’s modern vision for the productivity software.
The logos haven’t been updated in five years, and Office has changed a lot since then. Today, more than 1 billion people use the service, Microsoft said in a blog post, and the way people interact with it has changed dramatically since the last redesign.
The new logos look three-dimensional and more like modern app thumbnails. Each logo embodies the main function of the program, for example the logo for Word features lines of text and Excel has individual cells.
In what the company called a “tight rope,” Microsoft aimed to keep the familiarity of the older logos, while separating the letters from the symbols. Microsoft says that creates opportunities for 3D while also maintaining tradition for the older generations that have used the products for decades.
The symbols are now larger than the letters in the new logos, an about-face from prior designs. Microsoft said this change is meant to emphasize the content over the program, as Microsoft has focused on jumping across apps within its largest suite and collaborating on documents.
Microsoft has been steadily updating the look of Office, which has evolved over the years to the cloud-based Office 365 suite, for the next generation of workers. Over the summer, Microsoft overhauled the ribbon — the bar of commands at the top of the page — across Office programs. It took the ribbon down from three lines to two, updated icons and added more color.
Since Microsoft last updated its logos, Office 365 has become an even more robust part of the company’s mission. The acquisition of LinkedIn has led to new integrations between the business social network and Office programs. And Microsoft added a communications hub in Teams, which features tight integration with other Office programs.
