Daniel Hindrikes

Monday was me, Johan (@johankson) and David(@d_andersson) visiting Microsoft for a seminar about design, primary for Windows 8 and Windows Phone. Arturo Toledo (@arturot), Alex Toledo (@toledoal) and Vincent Garcia (@vincentgarcia) was the speakers at the seminar. Arturo is a former member of Microsofts Windows Phone team but now he has his own company, Toledo2, together with his brother Alex. The third speaker Vincent Garcia are working with design for Windows 8 and Windows Phone at Avanade Digital.

The Toledo brothers start the day by giving us a lesson in design history and talked about the Swiss design school and the international style. It's there the Metro design or Microsoft design language as it's called today, has its roots.

One of the message of the day that Microsoft design language is much more than tiles, thereof "Beyond the Tiles". They say the developers of Windows apps follow the guidelines to much and that make all Windows apps look the same, many developers use the Visual Studio templates and thinks the design has to be in that way.

Vincet Garcia showed us a couple of designs he had done for Windows 8 and Windows Phone and how the design has evolve with their increased understanding of the design language.

We also get som tip how we could improve the design of the Windows 8 version of WordRoom, thanks for that!

It was a good day and I became inspired and get much new knowledge to use in coming designs.