Operating Systems

“Time is vastly underutilized in the modern OS. Hard to believe such a fundamental way of thinking about the world has been overlooked for so long.”
– M. Pell

Had the opportunity to learn some truly valuable design lessons while working on the Windows Design team. The most important being that constraint is not a hindrance but rather a focusing factor. When you are considering changing something hundreds of millions of people use every day, it better be great, not just different. It was a big responsibility to work on a stage this large.

Windows 8 storyboard

Microsoft Corp.
(2009)

Part of the design process is sketching out scenario storyboards to try and capture the key experience moments. This was a quick one done using Sketchbook Pro to keep it electronic and easily communicated.

Windows 7 Explorer icon set

Microsoft Corp.
2009

United States Patents #D601164, #D614656S1, #D601165S1, #D614665S1, #D601170S1, #D601579S1, #D614666S1, #D614657S1
Issued September 29, 2009

Had the opportunity to design a complete set of icons for the Windows 7 Explorer to depict a new concept, “Libraries”, which are collections of data types which don’t necessarily have to reside in the same folder to be part of the set. Liked how the original sketches had a lot of life to them.

“Windows 7 Explorer

Microsoft Corp.
2009

We did a fairly big cleanup and streamlining of the Windows 7 Explorer surface area, which included removing the hard compartments of earlier versions, simplifying the tree view and updating the brand elements and color. The big concept added was Libraries, or collections of files that don’t have to reside in the same folder.

Worked on a ton of features during this release: