{"id":129681,"date":"2022-11-11T17:15:36","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T17:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/?p=447691"},"modified":"2022-11-11T17:15:36","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T17:15:36","slug":"surface-special-edition-merges-windows-11-bloom-and-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/11\/11\/surface-special-edition-merges-windows-11-bloom-and-liberty\/","title":{"rendered":"Surface Special Edition merges Windows 11 Bloom and Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

To celebrate a decade of Surface<\/a>, a special edition of Microsoft\u2019s signature 2-in-1 device draws its inspiration from Windows 11\u2019s desktop wallpaper and nearly 150 years of history at a world-renowned global design house.<\/p>\n

The Surface Pro Liberty Keyboard with Slim Pen 2<\/a>*, which shows off the collaboration between Microsoft Surface and the London-based Liberty<\/a>, is now available in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Japan (though supplies are limited).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a contrast of things and you would never expect this to happen in some ways,\u201d says Elliott Hsu, a principal hardware designer at Microsoft who headed a team that worked with Liberty to also create the laser engraved Surface Pro 9 Liberty Special Edition<\/a>* and printed keyboard, which embodies the elaborate florals Liberty is known for and serves as a natural branch of the Windows 11 Bloom that debuted last year.<\/p>\n

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Windows 11<\/a> introduced Bloom<\/a> to the world in 2021 as the very first image you saw on the screen: a desktop wallpaper that served as a symbolic image of starting anew with this operating system. Inspired by flowers, it was created entirely in the digital world.<\/p>\n

That was something that fascinated Adam Herbert and his design team at Liberty, a company he\u2019d long admired and loved before he started working there four years ago.<\/p>\n

While Microsoft\u2019s designers use technology in almost every step of their creative process, Liberty\u2019s designers use pens, pencils and paper. They go outside to sketch. They draw from the real world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always loved Liberty,\u201d Herbert says. \u201cI think it is a key figure in the DNA of British design. We create things that feel traditional and also unexpected at the same time. All of our designs start out as a drawing, painting, collage or sketch. It\u2019s a really interesting melting pot of ideas and design approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herbert admits it was \u201cmind-blowing\u201d for him to see how Microsoft created the Bloom flower that\u2019s come to symbolize Windows 11.<\/p>\n

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Established in 1875, Liberty has seen many trends come and go. But fashion and design being cyclical, the company has been able to ride many waves and stay relevant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s magical about their brand is a 90-year-old and a 19-year-old can wear the same scarf in a different way with the same print, and it works,\u201d Hsu says. \u201cFrom the design standpoint, we had always been inspired by Liberty and what they do, from their craftsmanship to brand ethos.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a proud tradition that Herbert grew to appreciate even more after discovering the vastness of Liberty\u2019s archives, which reveals different eras of the company\u2019s design history.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever we create now goes back into that archive,\u201d Herbert says. \u201cWe look at designs from 100 years ago and we redraw them and bring them back to life. I love to think that in 100 years, Liberty Designers will look at what we did now and they might revisit our work and use it in a totally different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Liberty and Microsoft\u2019s relationship began in 2019, when Hsu visited Liberty\u2019s headquarters in London to find design inspiration in the brand\u2019s well-known floral patterns. At that time, he and Herbert \u2013 who hit it off almost immediately \u2013 focused on the Washington state flower, the rhododendron, in trying to make an initial connection between the brands.<\/p>\n

The pandemic put a pause on their progress on the project, but it reiterated something that became integral to developing this special edition: the prominence of PCs in daily life.<\/p>\n

\u201cPCs and devices have become even more personal to people,\u201d Hsu says. \u201cDuring the pandemic, your PC never went away. It was always on your desk, always on your table. Everything in your personal and professional life came through that portal, which keeps us connected in trying times.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Herbert, his interaction with technology during the pandemic pushed him out of his comfort zone. Suddenly he had to work and communicate with his team while they were scattered all over London, when previously they put together design presentations with boards that had physical fabric swatches attached to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To celebrate a decade of Surface, a special edition of Microsoft\u2019s signature 2-in-1 device draws its inspiration from Windows 11\u2019s desktop wallpaper and nearly 150 years of history at a world-renowned global design house. The Surface Pro Liberty Keyboard with Slim Pen 2*, which shows off the collaboration between Microsoft Surface and the London-based Liberty, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[244,50],"class_list":["post-129681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-microsoft-surface","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}