Comments on: Office for Mac 2008 packaging revealed: underwhelmingly boxy and brown

By: Office Mac 08 packaging: more than meets the eye - istartedsomething

Office Mac 08 packaging: more than meets the eye - istartedsomething — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:02:32 +0000

[...] for group marketing in the Microsoft Mac Business Unit wrote a great comment in response to the Office Mac 2008 packaging image I had blogged about a few days ago. I’m glad she did because she corrected a lot of [...]

By: xaml

xaml — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:36:36 +0000

I like the new box better than the old plstc, LHONGH!

By: Sheridan Jones

Sheridan Jones — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:59:21 +0000

I think you’ll find the boxes are really beautiful in person, and very Mac-like – for example – the brown color you see is actually metallic silver. The white boxes are actually a deep pearlescent. The blind emboss of the logos adds depth that is hard to show online. The design is very simple, elegant, with more attention to user experience and detail than you can really pick up from the RGB images shown. We’ve tried to take out everything that was superfluous (you won’t find flap after flap of extraneous information on these boxes.) The size will fit perfectly on your bookshelf – the boxes are about the same size as a mid-sized book.

MUCH more important, and what I’m much prouder of, is how much more environmentally friendly these boxes are than our previous boxes, which were thermoformed plastic. Our new boxes are much smaller, and made from recyclable paper rather than the plastic of Office 2004 or Office 2007 for Windows. For every 1000 boxes, we’ve reduced our carbon footprint from Office 2004 substantially. I’ll be talking about this is a future blog posting on http://blogs.msdn.com/macmojo.

For those who aren’t loving the new boxes yet – check ‘em out when they’re in stores on January 15th – you may change your mind (or not, we’re all entitled to our own sense of design. For those who already like them – I think you’ll LOVE the finished product.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:40:19 +0000

I think what Long is trying to suggest here is that out of the 2004 and 2008 box designs, both portray a sense of simplicity but everything about the 2008 box looks like it was indeed whipped up by an interm on a Friday evening. Heck most people familiar with Photoshop can create the same look within a few minutes.
Why didnt MacBU showcase or incorporate the new look of office into the box design instead (such as achieved through ‘iWork 08 box graphic)

All in all a huge embarrasment as they’ve done so much better in the past.

By: Andre Da Costa

Andre Da Costa — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:09:20 +0000

I too was hoping that the MacBU would adopt the new product box design introduced with Office 2007/Vista, but I think I know why they hesitated. If you own a retail copy of the Office 2007 box, you will find it actually difficult to open and tamper with. Its actually tamper proof packaging to prevent theft and piracy. This is something I think the MacBU thought would be a bit too drastic for their product line although 20 percent of Office sales are Office for Mac. Mac users like simplicity and the 2008 design is traditional, familiar and simple. Even Apple continues with it although in a smaller format using a smaller foot print. Then again, its just a box, the software is what matters, if you are a Company you won’t care since you will probably download it through Volume License or receive it through your media kit. They probably could have stuck with the 2004 design, but I don’t consider 2008 design to be stoneage, since Microsoft themselves continue to employ it across a vast majority of their products. The Office 2001 box was also a very innovative design.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:43:57 +0000

Yuk! Flat and gradientless, bad color (scheme-is there any?), looks like a badly made duplicate copy, but no wait, this IS the original…packaging is clearly a step back from Office 2004.

By: Christoffer Hart

Christoffer Hart — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 03:52:28 +0000

When is it coming out?

By: Ely

Ely — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:57:49 +0000

I must agree that it looks ugly, there’s no comparison when you look at the 2004 version!

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:05:33 +0000

Simple box. That’s because the average mac user won’t be able to open the original 2007 boxes.

By: 西行资讯

西行资讯 — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:01:08 +0000

糟糕的设计：Office 2008 Mac 包装现身…

看见上图的Mac版Office 2008的外包装（点击可以查看高分辨率图片）了吗？如果还不觉得什么请看看后面附图的Office 2004版外包装，你就知道它有多么丑陋了。很奇怪，微软怎么会采用这么差的…