Behind the Unique Artwork of Windows 7 RC

The Release Candidate of Windows 7 ships, as some of you have been able to notice already, with new wallpapers, glass colors and sounds schemes. As the RC Build 7100 development milestone is scheduled to ship to the public tomorrow, May 5, 2009, the Redmond-based company has opened up a tad on the imagery included by default with the next iteration of Windows.

The content included in Windows features the traditional landscape photography, but also new nature- and landscape-oriented themes. According to Microsoft, the vast majority of the images are stock, photography, but there are some for which the company has collaborated with professional photographers, such as Will Austin. But of course, Win7 has more to offer than just photography.

“Inspired by our neighbors in Zune, we worked with an agency called 72 and Sunny to search for illustrators around the world to create one-of-a-kind art work for you to have in Windows 7. In the process of looking through tons of samples, we sought a group of artists whose styles seemed both incredibly varied, to cover the broad diversity we were after, and maintained a common thread that we felt was applicable to the overall tone we were striving to achieve. Then began the fun part, with little more than some simple guiding words (light, energetic, inspiring, optimistic, etc.), the artists went off with a blank canvas to create concept sketches of their original pieces,” revealed Denise Trabona and Samuel Moreau from the Microsoft product design team.

At the bottom of this article, you will be able to view some of the wallpapers included into Windows 7 by default. The new content, albeit on the edge compared to what previous editions of Windows have offered users, is fresh, modern and vibrating with a new energy, just like Windows 7. Microsoft worked with the artists to tweak even the smallest details of the artwork before the images were included into Windows 7. “We wanted to recognize the global audience of Windows by seeking out illustrators with varied backgrounds and styles with the intention of representing and appealing to people all around the world,” Trabona and Moreau added.