* The circle makes it hard to see at a glance if the face matches the badge, this is a big deal.<p>* The employee number should be on the front, because this is often needed for identifying people who security cant stop (for whatever reason), but are doing bad things.<p>* Printing on the back is expensive, the badge printers that do this cost often twice as much. Printing color is even more expensive, your talking increasing the cost of the badge by about a third. This also leads to other problems like heavy head wear because of the smart card contact, having to define avoidance areas because of the same and jamming issues with the added complexity of using the card flipper.<p>* Employment classification (Employee, Intern, Vendor Name, Partner, etc) should be printed in text on the front.<p>* Smaller companies would be encouraged to avoid printing the company logo or name on the badge, as this tells people where it will work.<p>* Same with the address, and the cost of replacement and expedience means returning the badge is useless. This wasn't true when Motorola Flexpass badges were first rolled out at MS, but its true now.<p>* Badge photos need to be standardized for various security reasons.<p>* Your current badge does already emphasize your first name, its not as prominent on yours as it was on mine, but it changes from time to time as they much with the access control software.<p>Where I'm coming from: I am a security engineer, I previously worked on physical security management and had started out in the industry at Microsoft. I work on systems that print hard cards for a paying hobby.<p>PS, I was fired from MS for posting an image of myself online where my badge was clear enough to copy. Might be something to check on.
Well I'll be the constructive voice. <i>I</i> like it.<p>You should be able to find email address in the corporate directory services, it's not like people are going to memorize them from looking at a badge. We already have business cards or mobile devices w/ NFC if it's necessary to transfer the email address in a persistent form.<p>Plus having names instead of email serves the more-important purpose of allowing people to more easily socially interact in meetings, social gatherings, etc.<p>Since it would almost be impossible to completely anonymize the purpose of the badge (especially with the request to return to Microsoft) using the current visual branding certainly beats using the 1988 visual branding.<p>I can't speak to "Former Metro" branding but it certainly <i>looks</i> pleasing enough.
A lot of designers make one big mistake. They design the content too. But content can't be designed.<p>For example the name. All his designs use short names because they look beautiful. But in real life names can be much longer.<p>And ofcourse the pictures. It's nice to have round pictures but it is almost impossible to get nice round pictures from every employee.<p>So when you are designing (and this doesn't only apply to graphic design): test your design using a lot of different content:<p><pre><code> Will it still work with longer names?
Will it still work with middle names?
Will it still work with bad / rectangle pictures?</code></pre>
One suggestion when doing address-book related design work is to add names such as Jet Li, Arianna Stassinopoulos, Ho Chi Minh, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Prince (or more appropriate real names) that are annoyingly short or frustratingly long, or otherwise non-standard, such as consisting of three or one components instead of the more conventional two. Better to know in advance of any layout problems you'll face ... :)
Great job putting together a prototype. Although I'm going to list specific complaints, I appreciate the effort in creating and risk in sharing, so good job and thanks.<p>- I don't follow the circle photo fad. It seems like an unnecessary complication (implementation and design element)<p>- By moving information to the back, you're assuming that the facilities which create these badges have the ability to do double-sided prints on the badges, and if they have the technical ability that it won't increase the time or work required to print a badge.<p>- You're assuming that the badge printer can print completely to the edge.<p>- Removing the "Employee" text and relying on the blue color is an accessibility problem (color-blind people need this information)<p>- Customizing your badge photo adds security policy complications.
The photos have two examples of employees with their face at an angle - you can see only one ear of the woman with red hair and one ear of the man with grey hair.<p>Since these photos serve a purpose (identifying the bearer, not making the bearer feel good about the photo) they probably need to be standardised and use something like passport photo criteria. (Although perhaps gently relaxing those standards).<p>There's no accessibility or diversity information either. It'd be nice to at last think about the needs of visually impaired users, for example.<p>But the cards are nice! Nicer than the original example.
Oh god, what is with the stupid "face in a circle"? I get that everybody's following the circle trend, but how does putting a face in a circle make your design more functional?<p>Also, there's a reason why badges photos are taken from the same angle. It makes it easier to identify you from your photo. It's harder to recognize someone from an odd angle. Same goes for photographing on a white backdrop. Your personal photos have all this distracting scenery to impede identification.<p>This is not design. Design makes things work better. This is just decoration.
On the note of minimalism the actually Apple badge looks like this. <a href="http://cdn-static.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/mobiles/jordan-id.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://cdn-static.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/mobiles/jordan-id.j...</a>
I love it, but I have one suggestion: show the employee's name on both sides.<p>For some reason, I have a hard time remembering names (but never forget faces), so I often glance at badges to try and remind myself what the person's name is. It's always a bummer when the badge is flipped around and I can't tell who it is.
Remarkable how much the old badge [1] resembles the original Nintendo Game Boy [2].<p>[1] <a href="https://ahmetalpbalkan.com/blog/static/images/2014/02/old-front-promo.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://ahmetalpbalkan.com/blog/static/images/2014/02/old-fr...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Nintendo_Gameboy.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Nintendo_...</a>
I don't like it. Its look is too reminiscent of Google's design language, especially their 'circles' in Google+. The look is very soft, while Microsoft's design language (formerly metro) is much more modern.
FWIW the IBM badge has:-<p>* The 8-bar company logo<p>* The country of issue<p>* Name<p>* Photo<p>On the back is a magstripe (not really used any more) and central return address in case it is found.<p>It has an RFID for door access and to store cash for vending-machines and the restaurant.<p>No employee number anywhere. I have to remember that (along with the passwords for seventy-six different systems.)<p>Contractors have a yellow background for the name.<p>ID cards have to be on display at all times, so many wear them on a lanyard or clipped to a belt loop.
First names aren't necessarily the 'most important' -- especially for names that aren't of European origin.<p>Employee number isn't sensitive information.
Cool, but they probably won't be able to adopt that design. Badges like this are made with special printers which have a minimum margin which is why most/all badge you see out there have that ugly white margin around them.
I like Google's badges:<p>* Dual-sided, so it's never facing the wrong way out. (No dual-sided printer required, they are glued onto the underlying RFID card.)<p>* RFID, so there is no sensitive information on the badge.<p>* The face takes up most of the badge, so it's easy to check if it looks reasonable when someone is following you through the door.<p>* The face is 3D, which is just plain cool.<p>* The first name is larger than the last name, making it a little easier to glance over at someone's badge when you've forgotten their name. (This happens to me with frightening regularity.)
I was an intern at MS in 2001, and this weekend when I was going through my box of old memorabilia, I found a badge identical to the "current" badge.<p>Probably time for a redesign...
I'm sure a badge redesign is in the works. I'd be surprised if there isn't a new badge (at least with updated logo) by this time next year.<p>Depending on how much it ends up changing, old employees might not be forced to get a new badge. In that case, it'll eventually be a funny way to differentiate employees from before/after the "Reorg/Satya Epoch" haha.
This makes me think large companies like this should invest just a tad bit more in taking quality photos. Ditch the DMV backdrop, on-camera flash and low quality photo and invest in a couple umbrellas and just an entry-level dSLR. As often as they are seen, you should make people feel good about it.
Did you consider left aligning the name? By centering the name, you're not letting the eyes get trained on where to look instinctively. Someone named "Jim" has a much different starting point than "Mohammed".<p>Also, I'd have made the last name much smaller.
Trying to "think like a user", with the exception of updating the logo, the badges are identical. Nobody would really notice the change, let alone care about the text alignment on their security badge.<p>Take this as constructive criticism, this is the kind of thing that you can waste a lot of time on without scoring any points with your users/customer/management.
Not to be a contrarian, but am I the only one who finds the entire concept of badges antiquated to begin with. With today's technology, why not use RFIDs or a smartphone that automatically signs you in, alerts security if your tag is invalid etc. Wouldn't that be a lot easier to use, more secure, and probably cheaper too?
So what you've changed is to center the information (not a big deal, move a whole load of useful information to the rear and use a more up to date logo.<p>Seems pointless. Microsoft have updated their logo four times in the past four years. People update their favourite photo once every couple of months. It also require that corporate directory services allow updating of photos significantly more often, just so people can have a photo of themselves they like. Finally you've ignored practicalities of printing logos. Sounds like a typical design with no understanding of the limitations involved or requirements.<p>Most of the offence here seems to be because you didn't like the photo (because it's passport / security style instead of Faceboook / Instagram esque?) and the 8 bit colour printing. Both of these are intrinsic to the requirements caused by printing badges.<p>By the way, the logo was valid in 2012, not just 1998 - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft#Logo" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft#Logo</a>
- The photo is the most important feature of the badge; for security reasons, it should be as large as possible.<p>- First and last names are not as important as one's email address<p>- The logo is a security risk; should a badge go missing, it's a clue as to where to (mis)use the badge.
The only thing I don't like here is the way the last name is printed. I'm all for emphasizing first names, but there's something about the way it's printed that make me read it as a title. Like Ahmed is a Balkan at Microsoft.
So why is the employee id sensitive information?<p>Why do you care that your badge picture is ugly? Seriously? Do you also expect to take a picture of you kayaking at the lake to the DMV?
Great job! I'm a big fan of minimalistic design which unfortunate to say most of MS products aren't. Looking forward to more design ideas from you :)
God I hate badges.<p>Cattle wear numbers on their ears. Prisoners too, in some prison systems (but not all). How can people accept to wear a <i>number</i> on them, I don't know. Even a name; what's a name? I resent being defined by my birth name. I have many names, pseudonyms, handles, etc.<p>I'm not an employee so I never get a badge with my picture on it; when I go to clients' sites they usually give me a "guest" badge that I promptly put in my coat's pocket, only to give it back at the end of the day.<p>It's never happened that I needed it for anything anyway (and that includes Microsoft (France)).
This particular design doesn't take a lot of skill to create, and I'm not sure the author knows what problem to solve. The triviality of the redesign should be embarrassing to the creator.
The badges wont look like this with the standard security camera mugshot that security offices use and the picture is probably too small to make them happy as well.<p>Other than that nice job. I don't think it will be implemented.
This is a real company man, holy crap!, spending your own time redesigning the your employers badge is really quite sad.<p>Microsoft is known for hiring young gullible people and indoctrinating them with the idea that MS is a good company rather than the reason the software industry was held back for decades, using illegal tactics. If it could have killed open source it would have.
It's a pretty badge, but unfortunately it's a security risk. Putting identifying information on there is an opening for social engineering attacks. The employee name and anything tying it to Microsoft shouldn't be on there. Really, just the photo and badge id (not the employee ID) should be there. If there's a "return to" address, it should be a nondescript PO box that's not in Redmond.<p>Edit: Also, the employee number shouldn't be on there for the same reason.