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The Metro Theme

By Heshy Friedman

One of the major overhauls of Windows 8 was an entirely redesigned theme called the “Metro” theme. The point of Microsoft introducing the Metro theme is to provide a more “hip” and trendy version of Windows and to give a new and fresh feel to the operating system. Highlights of the metro theme include solid saturated (though slightly dark-toned) colors, a rectangular boxy feel, rounded yet thin sans-serif fonts, and large texts and buttons.

While Windows 8 has been a disaster (see our recent blog post on this), the Metro Theme has picked up in popularity. The theme can be found in new website designs, desktop applications, and even other operating systems such as a new Android OS version. Since many web designers are accepting the Metro theme in their design for new websites, this has become the growing trend. Time will only tell how long it will stick around, but for now it is here, and needs to be given the proper consideration.

Due to an apparent trademark infringement on a retail partner (the German company Metro AG), Microsoft officially dropped the “Metro” name in 2012 in favor of “Microsoft design language”. Microsoft claims the reason for dropping the Metro name was not related to any trademark litigation, and it was just an internal project codename. However, whatever the reason may be, the Metro name has stuck, and is widely used by web and application designers.