A twenty-something art student student in L.A. named Andrew Kim had a great idea. What if corporate identity could be treated like an art school project? What if you had to remake the look of a major corporation in just three days?
Kim is no ordinary art student. Korean-born and Vancouver-raised, he already lists Google, Frog Design, Cisco and Kimberly-Clark on his resume. And he didn't pick just any company to makeover, but Microsoft just after its announcement of the new Surface tablet.
This is an interesting time to try to re-imagine Microsoft. This week, Forbes Leadership editor Frederick Allen posted The Terrible Management Technique That Caused Microsoft Its Creativity, that points to how "stack ranking" cripples creative teams and leads to a short-sighted corporate culture. That post has shot to the top of our most read list, so the fate of Microsoft is clearly on people's minds. And for all of the changes to the products coming out of Redmond, the overall graphic design of its packaging and corporate identity (as opposed to user interface) is still a trailing indicator.
Kim is very clear to put a disclaimer in the first slide of his presentation that says, "This personal project may not reflect the views or plans of Microsoft." But, have a look. It could—and perhaps should—represent its plans. Kim has come up with a very elegant way of tying the new Surface tablet to the Windows Phone (see top image, above) and of tying Surface to Windows and Office through the simple play of parallelograms (see below).
Equally interesting, Kim has defined a very forward looking territory for Microsoft in relation to its biggest rivals, Apple and Google. He characterizes Microsoft's user interface paradigm as "Purely Digital" compared to Apple's "Skeuomorphic" and Google's "Hybrid" (see below). This distinction allows him to come up with as "high-concept" a mission statement as Microsoft could ever hope for—and a clear way forward, "The next Microsoft is built around the belief and passion for the future. Innovation and progress is engraved into the culture and expressed to the public in a bold and mysterious fashion."
This vision is filled with much wishful thinking. Design is a driver for technology companies, but it is also easy for designers to overstate their own influence. Can Microsoft seize upon the changes they have instigated in their gaming and now consumer product efforts to wholly transform the company? Can better branding really "engrave" better management practices in a company that utilizes "terrible" management techniques?
Probably not, but this is what one (very talented) person did in just three days. Really changing institutions is tough and takes time. Design does have the advantage of being visible and immediate. Change the branding and you do change the culture, at least a bit. The important thing here for me is that Kim has identified unique strengths that Microsoft can exploit to remake themselves. Steve Ballmer, you getting this?
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