On Jan. 2, 1975, Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a letter to MITS, the manufacturer of the Altair computer. Inspired by a Popular Electronics article about the Altair 8800, Gates and Allen—who were geeking out on microprocessors and software while working at a traffic data company—pitched the idea of a version of BASIC for the MITS machine. They called themselves “Micro-Soft,” for (you guessed it) microprocessor and software. Discover more in this edition of Tech Time Warp.
The Albuquerque, New Mexico, company was intrigued and signed a contract with Gales and Allen. Although Microsoft wasn’t officially incorporated until 1981, the tech juggernaut had been born. In 1976, Micro-Soft dropped the hyphen.
The evolution of the Microsoft logo
The first Microsoft logo made its debut in 1975 and reflected the disco area. In this logo, “Micro” and “Soft” were split into two words. Then, in 1980, the company adopted a heavy metal-inspired logo featuring a sharp typeface not dissimilar to the one used by Metallica. The company kept this logo for only two years before it adopted a new Microsoft logo featuring an “O” known as a “Blibbet,” which designers intended to look like a CD but people saw as either a steering wheel or a rising sun.
Finally, in 1987, Microsoft adopted a logo with some staying power: the word Microsoft simply expressed in Helvetica italic, with a design element carved into the first “o” and the “s,” perhaps in a nod to the hyphen of yesteryear.
In 2012, Microsoft adopted its current logo featuring a multicolor square and a simple gray treatment of the company’s name in a sans serif typeface. The four squares in the logo represent Microsoft Office, Xbox, Windows, and Bing.
For a snarky look at Microsoft’s past approaches to packaging—especially vis-à-vis Apple’s—watch “Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod Packaging.”
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