SharePoint Designer and Branding

Abstract

I was hesitant to include a chapter on SharePoint Designer and branding in this administration book. However, SharePoint 2013 includes a wonderful new user interface. I would be doing you, the reader, a disservice if I did not cover branding SharePoint’s user interface at least a high level. Microsoft coined the name “Metro” to describe its new brand of recent applications and operating systems. The plan for Metro is to provide a clean and simple brand design that works on a number of applications, platforms, and devices. Pick up a new Windows 8 phone and you will see the common user interface paradigms present in Windows 8 on desktop computers and on the Xbox 360. Alas, due to legal issues in using the name “Metro,” Microsoft now calls the brand “Windows 8 Theme,” although the design and user interface is the same.