A conversation with Surface and Marimekko designers on the intersection of customization, design, and tech

Surface announces new accessories. New Type Cover, Surface Arc Mouse, and Surface Penwill join the full collection of accessories from Finnish fashion design company, Marimekko on October 17. Visit Microsoft.com to purchase your favorite Marimekko accessory today, and check back on October 17 for new aqua accessories.

 Since our very beginning, Surface has set out to inspire a generation of creators to do more, create more, be more productive, and have more fun. This is the heart of our mission in Surface; it started five years ago to create the most productive devices on the planet, to empower people to create. And now we believe nothing should stand in the way of bringing your ideas to life.

Surface has continued to evolve to bring customers even more of what they love in their next laptop. Beyond new magical experiences from Windows, Office, and other app partners that help people create in new ways with our innovative hardware, we want to celebrate the intersection of technology and design. You should feel proud to pull a Surface—the ultimate laptop—from your bag, wherever you are. And the influence of fashion, aesthetics, texture, and color make the technology more personal, an extension of your style and personality, like your favorite sweater, handbag, fragrance, and home accessory.

How did our design team set the strategy for the new intersection of technology and style? And how do global design companies think about the aesthetics and color in ways that can influence Surface? We’ll explore that today with one of our lead Surface designers, Quan Jasinski, and Sami Ruotsalainen, Senior Designer from our newest Surface accessory partner, Marimekko.

I first sat down with Quan who works nearby in our Surface design lab.

Eric: Hello, Quan and thanks for taking the time to speak with us. We all want to know how you decide on the next color or design for an accessory or device?

Quan: Color has many filters and it allows us the opportunity to share the emotional connection and offers a personal experience. Colors and materials are critical to craft this moment.

As designers at Microsoft, we love to use our hands and hearts when creating new products and experiences. We are consistently inspired by everything around us varying from consumer behavior, cultures merging, nature, architecture, art, science, fashion, sports, and the list goes on. Absorbing these experiences, we begin to understand how to create a holistic experience that merges technology into lifestyle.

Aqua is a soft and approachable color. When creating Aqua we drew inspiration from our natural surroundings which helped develop its friendly attributes. This color works beautifully with our materials, from the richness of Alcantara through to the depth and sheen of anodization on our pen. It complements the rest of the existing palette while adding a hint of lightness.

Eric: It really is a stunning tone. How do you come of this this? Where do you seek inspiration?

Quan: Typically, I check my list of various websites, blogs, and feeds to get my “inspirational breakfast”; I need to constantly keep my eye on what’s happening and what’s developing. Travel and new experiences are always inspirational, even something as minor as taking a different road to work can change the way you view the world. And in general, the creative environment at Microsoft allows the designers to share and inspire each other through conversation.

Eric: Can you describe your process from ideation to creation?

Quan: Being inspired by our surroundings is what generates creative thinking. I start with a good understanding of what the essence of the product experience is through research and a collection of inspiring products, images, and materials. From there I translate these collages into a defined color story that envelopes all parts and accessories of a specific product.

I then use the established story and color direction to begin developing the color in physicality, mostly through iterative sampling and prototyping with materials in our model shop. There is a lot of fine-tuning in this process to create the perfect color and finish. Often the biggest challenge is making sure the color is cohesive and crafted to compliment material palette. We work relentlessly with our partners from engineering to manufacturing to master our intent into the materials with a high level of quality and refinement

Eric: Sounds very intensive. Why does hardware aesthetic matter in technology, and how has it evolved?

Quan: Technology is no longer seen as a tool just for data, function, and business use. It has evolved into a much more personal and intimate experience that we integrate into several elements of our lifestyle. We live with our technology, it’s often the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see before going to sleep. If we are living with something this much, then we want it to look beautiful, feel inviting, and evoke confidence. Consumers understand that design is now a choice when purchasing products, and they have become savvy to what is considered good design.

Eric: It does seem like customization is so important to people. I’ve personally experienced the desire to make tech personal and unique, which is one of the reasons I love what I do. What excites you most about designing for Surface?

Quan: Surface offers meaningful and powerful devices across their portfolio. It is exciting for me to work through a lens of materials and colors as we build our new products and experiences

I learn so much each day by being part of a team that creates a hybrid of technology, design, materials, art, science, engineering, and information.

Making a fashion statement with tech accessories:

Finnish design house, Marimekko is renowned for its original prints and colors. You’ve probably seen their high-quality clothing, bags, and accessories on fashion runways and in stores. The company has been doing this since 1951, so we were thrilled to partner with their experts on a collection of accessories for Surface. I had a chance to speak with Senior Designer Sami Ruotsalainen to understand how they approached applying their legacy and style to Surface.

Eric: Hello, Sami and thanks for taking the time to speak with us. We’re so excited about this collaboration. Can you tell us a bit about the design process at Marimekko?

Sami: We always start the process with a creative brief that sets the tone for each collection. We have an archive of over 3,500 patterns, sometimes we select a pattern from there and often we also create new ones. Marimekko is a lifestyle brand, and our product portfolio includes home décor items, ready-to-wear, and bags and accessories.

The heart of Marimekko is our in-house printing factory in Helsinki, Finland, where we cherish our art of print making and craftsmanship in design. In fact, the printing mill where over a million meters of fabric is printed annually is located right next to our offices and design studio. We partner very closely with the craftsmen of the printing factory to develop new prints and colorways for our collections. As you can imagine, color is incredibly important to us and we are able to mix new colors together in our color kitchen also located in our printing mill.

Eric: Tell us a bit about the Marimekko for Microsoft Surface collaboration

Sami: Microsoft Surface and Marimekko both present a bold, positive and inclusive approach to design. This collaboration felt like a natural fit and we are so excited about the entire line of accessories.

For the Marimekko for Microsoft Surface products, we chose some of Marimekko’s most iconic prints to bring personality and customization to the Surface family. Some, like Unikko (poppy) and Kaivo (well) were created in the 1960’s and have been an important part of Marimekko’s collections ever since.. Siirtolapuutarha (city garden) and Räsymatto (rag rug) were both created in the last ten years and have become contemporary Marimekko classics.

All four patterns represent the creativity and spirit of Marimekko and give Surface users an opportunity to customize their devices – and since these devices are used on a daily basis, what better way to bring joy and happiness into people’s everyday lives than with an accessories line that brings a pop of colour to your life!

The new aqua Type Cover, Surface Arc Mouse, and Surface Pen will be available at Microsoft Store and Microsoft.com.

The Marimekko for Microsoft Surface collection is available right now. Visit your local Microsoft Store or Microsoft.com to dress up your Surface.

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow | Techno World | Connect To World | on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Expanded safeguards for advertisers

The web has opened a door for new communities and platforms that help people find diverse views and have a voice. Today, anyone with a smartphone can be a content creator, app developer or entrepreneur. And Google has enabled millions of content creators and publishers to be heard, find an audience, earn a living, or even build a business. Much of this is made possible through advertising. Thousands of sites are added every day to our ad network, and more than 400 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. We have a responsibility to protect this vibrant, creative world—from emerging creators to established publishers—even when we don’t always agree with the views being expressed.

But we also have a responsibility to our advertisers who help these publishers and creators thrive. We have strict policies that define where Google ads should appear, and in the vast majority of cases, our policies and tools work as intended. But at times we don’t get it right.

Recently, we had a number of cases where brands’ ads appeared on content that was not aligned with their values. For this, we deeply apologize. We know that this is unacceptable to the advertisers and agencies who put their trust in us. That’s why we've been conducting an extensive review of our advertising policies and tools, and why we made a public commitment last week to put in place changes that would give brands more control over where their ads appear.

I wanted to share that we've already begun ramping up changes around three areas: our ad policies, our enforcement of these policies and new controls for advertisers.

 

Raising the bar for our ad policies

We know advertisers don't want their ads next to content that doesn’t align with their values. So starting today, we’re taking a tougher stance on hateful, offensive and derogatory content. This includes removing ads more effectively from content that is attacking or harassing people based on their race, religion, gender or similar categories. This change will enable us to take action, where appropriate, on a larger set of ads and sites.

We’ll also tighten safeguards to ensure that ads show up only against legitimate creators in our YouTube Partner Program—as opposed to those who impersonate other channels or violate our community guidelines. Finally, we won’t stop at taking down ads. The YouTube team is taking a hard look at our existing community guidelines to determine what content is allowed on the platform—not just what content can be monetized.

 

Increased brand safety levels and controls for advertisers

Every company has brand guidelines that inform where and when they want their ads to appear. We already offer some controls for advertisers that respond to these needs. In the coming days and months, we’re introducing new tools for advertisers to more easily and consistently manage where their ads appear across YouTube and the web.  

• Safer default for brands. We’re changing the default settings for ads so that they show on content that meets a higher level of brand safety and excludes potentially objectionable content that advertisers may prefer not to advertise against. Brands can opt in to advertise on broader types of content if they choose.
• Simplified management of exclusions. We’ll introduce new account-level controls to make it easier for advertisers to exclude specific sites and channels from all of their AdWords for Video and Google Display Network campaigns, and manage brand safety settings across all their campaigns with a push of a button.
• More fine-tuned controls. In addition, we’ll introduce new controls to make it easier for brands to exclude higher risk content and fine-tune where they want their ads to appear.

Increasing resources, accelerating reviews and improving transparency

 

We’ll offer advertisers and agencies more transparency and visibility on where their ads are running, and in the coming months we’ll expand availability of video-level reporting to all advertisers.

We'll be hiring significant numbers of people and developing new tools powered by our latest advancements in AI and machine learning to increase our capacity to review questionable content for advertising. In cases where advertisers find their ads were served where they shouldn’t have been, we plan to offer a new escalation path to make it easier for them to raise issues. In addition, we’ll soon be able to resolve these cases in less than a few hours.

We believe the combination of these new policies and controls will significantly strengthen our ability to help advertisers reach audiences at scale, while respecting their values. We will continue to act swiftly to put these new policies and processes in place across our ad network and YouTube. But we also intend to act carefully, preserving the value we currently provide to advertisers, publishers and creators of all sizes. In the end, there’s nothing more important to Google than the trust we’ve built amongst our users, advertisers, creators and publishers. Brand safety is an ongoing commitment for us, and we’ll continue to listen to your feedback.

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow | Techno World | Connect To World | on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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