Office apps which are not getting new icons are clearly not cool

Designers at Microsoft have been busy rolling out their new icons for the new Microsoft Office applications. The new icons were forged in the fires of the Fluent Design System. Shadow, depth, texture, and light bring these new icons to life. OneNote was the first app to receive an icon update with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook not far behind.

Of course Office.com was the first place where the new icons debuted, but not every Office application is represented online. Access, Publisher, and Visio, to name a few, clearly are not cool enough to get a refreshed icon. Desktop database applications are a relic of the past, and according to developers on the Access team they regularly get bullied by Excel engineers.

The divide is most apparent during lunch when all of the developers and designers hit the cafeteria. Word engineers mixing freely with PowerPoint designers; Excel and Outlook programmers are laughing over a light salad. In the corner the Publisher team quickly eats their meal and tries not to attract any attention. Maybe someday the warm soft glow of Fluent design will grace these outcasts, but today is not that day.