Lotus should be like aqua
Two relatively recent, and very literal, examples of interface as brand illustrate this point further. In 2000, Apple introduced the interface of its next-generation operating system, Mac OS X. Rather than just previewing the interactions or visual language, it developed a whole new brand to describe the interface itself: Aqua. And more recently, Microsoft seems to have pulled off the same trick with Metro, which has evolved from a user interface into something of a totemic direction for all of the company’s products; a system that was originally developed for a mobile phone interface has now practically rebranded the company itself5. By creating a brand for Aqua and Metro as distinct entities with their own tones of voice, Apple and Microsoft created more than just a collection of interface elements. They created something with meaning--something with which people, early technology adopters in particular, could engage in a conversation and begin to identify. These two systems of interaction blur the boundary between what brand and interface mean for the future of both branding and interaction design.