Office icons updated with modernized design, rolling out to all platforms in coming months

Microsoft today announced it is giving a facelift to its Part icons, bringing them into the modern era equally Office continues to transform into a more collaborative suite. The new icons for Function 365 have been designed to embrace the history of Office while giving them a "bolder, lighter and friendlier" expect.

In announcing the new icons, Microsoft gave a niggling background on how information technology approached the design process:

We wanted a visual linguistic communication that emotionally resonates across generations, works beyond platforms and devices, and echoes the kinetic nature of productivity today.

Our design solution was to decouple the alphabetic character and the symbol in the icons, essentially creating ii panels (one for the letter and one for the symbol) that we can pair or separate. This allows us to maintain familiarity while still emphasizing simplicity inside the app.

Each icon, Microsoft explains, now focuses more on the content produced by each app, rather than a document outline for Word and a spreadsheet outline for Excel, for case. The icons accept also switched upwards the alphabetic character-to-symbol ration, giving two-thirds of the space to the symbol and one-3rd to the letter. This shift was fabricated to "[speak] more to people'due south creations," Microsoft says.

The new icons are set to roll out across all platforms in the coming months. You'll start seeing them on mobile and the spider web first, with other platforms to follow.

News of the updated icons also comes as Microsoft has pushed out a minor update to its Function Mobile apps on Windows 10, bringing a new radial color picker that was kickoff spotted in testing in September.

Minecraft Preview can now be downloaded and played on Windows

New ways to test

Minecraft Preview can at present be downloaded and played on Windows

On Monday, Mojang Studios appear Minecraft Preview, a new Minecraft game that volition let players test upcoming changes and updates earlier they release. Minecraft Preview volition eventually supplant the electric current Minecraft: Boulder Edition beta program.