At Microsoft MIX10 today the Windows Phone 7 Series team are handing out a very special picture book all about our favorite user interface, Metro. There is 47 pages full of beautiful text and icons that explain where Metro comes from, what Metro represents and what guides the philosophy.
It’s rumored to be on Oprah’s reading list next week.
P.S. I have gained a lot of respect for automated book scanning projects.
It’s also rumored to win the Nobel Prize in Literature I’m sure.
oh dear… that just looks and reads like a emotional brand guide from one of those over the top cool ad agencies… can someone summarize for me what the bottom line of this book is?
I think a lot of that book is pretentious….but. I just got what Metro really is, with the whole street sign motif. Both the text and the icons. In fact, I think a good commercial might be to have someone walking or driving down a street and seeing all those icons as street signs and whatnot. Is that what the Spain promo video was getting at besides the whole app separation critique?
Well, one thing is for sure, making glossy brochures for WP7 is gonna be pretty easy.
i love this whole metro thing! its clean, fresh, new && original! im sure the consumers will take too this..
This is very sad. They are switching from substance to looks. iPhone type garbage. Pretty and useless. It’s good to know when one metro train leaves the station, a rocket is already ascending. After 13 years of windows CE I think I’m gonna board that rocket: Android.
(hp jornada 360lx, 620lx, 680lx, Dell Axim, HTC Hermes, Kaiser, Diamond, Raphael, Rhodium… end of an era)
please scan it and make it a pdf so people like me and others can download it. i would appreciate it. my brother has a graphic design course so he would find it useful too.
Okay, I like the ‘METRO’ UI, but this book looks like the biggest pile of wankery from a pack of self-indulgent designers!
As a geek, graphic designer, typographer, and transit railfan who has always had a bit of an unhealthy fascination and addiction to gadgetry, Helvetica, the New York City subway system, and the works of Massimo Vignelli and his contemporaries, this is an amazing intersection of all of my strongest interests and only wish I could’ve been a part of the design team who did this book and the overall visual style of the book.
I find it amusing and slightly discouraging that some folks just don’t ‘get’ the concept of a brand book like this and granted, not everyone can appreciate this stuff for the very same reason that not everyone can appreciate well designed and commented Ruby on Rails code. I’ve always wondered what ‘normal’ people think of these design mantra books that are ALL ABOUT the design process, how the team arrived at their final product, and the minutiae about what they are trying to convey in their design – you don’t normally get such a well-designed, graphically stunning product like this in the tech industry (I can only imagine the headaches my IT department and many others could save with better designed database management software…), let alone a book letting you into the minds of the designers themselves. Yeah, it is a bunch of graphic design rhetoric, but it’s considerably more relevant and possibly even more profound than art for art’s sake and the fluffy commentary and interpretation that comes with it.
My favourite line from the book: Typography is beautiful. Period.
Nothing more true could be said and a software developer is finally making these 26+ characters we look at daily and the messages they convey that much easier to consume.
There is an typographic error on page 23.
😛
Simply gorgeous! Can’t wait to lay my hands on one..
Cheers
Hey, was browsing around Wp7 backstage forums, and found this:
http://www.windowsphone7.com/backstage/forums/index.aspx/windows-phone_design_metro-book-mix
Turns out, the Windows Phone team is releasing a high quality PDF of the book. Check it out here:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/F/C/FFCF79B1-C2EB-42C2-8E2D-665705380DA0/Windows%20Phone%20Design%20System%20-%20Codename%20Metro.PDF
BlasterNT Do you have a PDF copy you can email? I lost mine.
Does anyone have a copy of the Windows Phone 7 Series PDF??? I lost mine when my computer crashed a month ago. Looks like Microsoft pulled down the link listet by BlasterNT.
Hey,
I found the PDF up at http://event.msdevcon.ru/disc/content/Learn/Windows%20Phone%20Design%20System%20-%20Codename%20Metro.PDF
Cheers!