by , 7:00 AM EDT, July 21st, 2000
The IconFactory has announced that they were chosen by Microsoft to develop the icon set for Microsoft Office 2001 for Mac. Microsoft chose to outsource the project rather than to have the icons developed internally. The resulting Microsoft product is therefore the most "Mac-like" product that Microsoft has produced in years. According to the IconFactory:
As was demonstrated this morning in Steve Jobs' keynote address at MacWorld, New York, Microsoft formally announced the newest version of its popular Office suite of applications - Office 2001.
The Iconfactory is pleased to announce it worked closely with the Office team at Microsoft to update and revise the over 300 user interface and desktop icons for Office 2001.
Previously, The Iconfactory contracted with Microsoft to redesign all of the user interface icons for their freeware e-mail client - Outlook Express. Work on Office 2001 however, quadrupled the amount of icons needed as well as added support for 128x128 thumbnail icons. The result is a unified design that is more Mac-like than ever before.
We invite you to take a sneak peak at a small sample of Office's application and document icons at The Iconfactory, and Microsoft's web site.
You can find more information on Office 2001 at Microsoft's Web site. You can find more information on the icons, including a JPEG of the set, at the IconFactory's Web site.
Congratulations to the IconFactory for the gig and for doing a great job. The icon set looks very good. Congratulations to Microsoft's Mac Business Unit for making a sound decision on making their product more Mac like.