Microsoft Access: Evaluating the New Logo Compared with the Previous Design
A visual comparison of the current Microsoft Access logo and the previous letter-A tile: symbol, color, geometry, scope, and what to check before using vector assets.
Contents
What the new Microsoft Access logo is
The logo people mean by “the new Microsoft Access logo” is the Fluent-era app icon for Microsoft Access, the desktop database program in Office and Microsoft 365. It is the red-burgundy table, or datasheet, mark that replaced the earlier flat Access tile built around a white capital A. The current icon still uses Access’s established place in the Office color system. The symbol itself now reads as a data table rather than as a letterform.
That app icon is the subject of this comparison. It is separate from the “Microsoft Access” wordmark, from any full lockup of symbol plus name, and from the smaller file-type icons used for database files such as ACCDB and the older MDB format. Those file glyphs often share color and a table hint with the app icon, but they are drawn for a different job and can simplify or crop the grid. Treat them as related assets, not as interchangeable masters.
Which version counts as previous
Access has had more than two marks, so “previous” needs a generation attached to it. The immediate predecessor of the current table icon is the Office 2013–2016-style tile: a solid Access-red square (sometimes slightly rounded) with a white geometric A. That A-era mark is what most redesign write-ups are measuring the Fluent icon against.
An older lineage, still widely archived in screenshots and clip-art packs, used a key. Early Access identity treated the product name literally: a key for “access” to data, later combined with a red A. That key-and-A family is the ancestor of the letter tile, not the mark the Fluent icon replaced overnight. If you are matching assets for Access 2007–2010 materials, you are in the key-and-A period. If you are matching Access 2013–2016 materials, you are in the flat A-tile period. If you are matching current Microsoft 365 or recent Windows shells, you are in the table-icon period.
Side-by-side: what actually changed
| Aspect | Previous mark (flat A tile) | Current mark (Fluent table icon) |
| Primary symbol | White capital A on a red field | Red-burgundy data table / datasheet grid |
| Metaphor | The product’s initial | The product’s object: a table of records |
| Dimensional treatment | Single flat plane, Metro/modern tile language | Shared Office Fluent object: stacked or slightly extruded table, header plus cell grid |
| Color role | Access red/burgundy, used to separate the app from Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook | Same family role: Access stays in the red-burgundy slot of the Office set |
| Small-size behavior | The A holds at 16 px with little extra drawing | The grid is the risk point: cells can clog unless a size-specific drawing is used |
| Family fit | Matched the letter-tile generation of Office apps | Matched the 2018-onward Office object icons (document, grid, envelope, and so on) |
The redesign is a metaphor swap inside a stable color slot. Microsoft kept Access recognizable as “the red Office app” and changed what the red object is. That is why a dock of Office icons still parses at a glance, while someone who last used Access in 2016 may hunt for an A that is no longer there.
Observable features of the current mark
On the current app icon, the field is a warm red to burgundy. Across the field sits a table: a header band and a grid of cells, drawn in a lighter value so the rows and columns read as structure rather than as decoration. In the Fluent treatment the table is an object, with a hint of stack or perspective, consistent with how Word, Excel and PowerPoint were redrawn as physical-feeling tools rather than as letters on tiles.
- Color: red-burgundy, aligned with Access’s long-running Office family color, distinct from Excel green, Word blue and PowerPoint orange.
- Symbol: a datasheet or table, typically a header row plus a cell grid.
- Construction: even cell pitch and a clear header-versus-body split; those two parts carry most of the recognition.
- Depth: a slight extrusion or stack, shared with the rest of the Fluent Office set, rather than a purely flat monogram.
- Corners and container: the icon lives in the same rounded-square app-icon container as the other Microsoft 365 apps in a given shell.
Those points are visual readings of the shipped icon language. Exact hex values, corner radii, cell counts and path geometry are properties of a specific official asset file. They should be taken from the icon set that matches the Office or Windows generation you are targeting. This article does not include those files, so it does not state measurements.
Observable features of the previous A tile
The previous generation put a white A on a saturated Access-red square. The letter was the whole identity. It was easy to redraw, easy to stencil, and easy to spot in a monochrome or one-color lockup. It also tied Access to the same letter-tile system as the rest of Office at that time: each app was its initial on a brand-colored field.
That system was clear at 16 px and in print. It told you the product’s name faster than it told you the product’s job. Access, being less ubiquitous than Word or Excel, depended on that A more than those apps did. Dropping the letter therefore has a larger recognition cost for Access than the same generation change had for Excel, whose grid metaphor was already famous.
How to judge the redesign
On product semantics, the table is the stronger mark. Access is a database. A grid of records is what users actually open. The A was a filing label. On suite consistency, the current icon is the one that belongs next to current Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook icons. Mixing an A tile with Fluent object icons is the visual error most mockups make.
On distinctiveness inside the suite, Access still relies on color more than on unique silhouette. Several Office-adjacent tools use grids. Excel is a grid of a different kind. The Access table is usually drawn as a compact datasheet object with a header, which is enough at app-icon size when the burgundy field is present. In one-color or reversed treatments that field goes away, and the table can drift toward a generic spreadsheet. If you need a monochrome Access mark, test it against Excel at the same size before you ship.
On craft, the A was the simpler vector. The table is the more fragile one. Cell stroke, header weight and perspective have to stay even. If any of those drift, the icon looks like a broken spreadsheet rather than like Access. That is a production issue as much as a design one: pick the official drawing for the size you need, and resist tracing a screenshot.
Practical next steps for vector assets
- Pin the generation. Name the Office or Microsoft 365 generation you are matching (A-tile versus Fluent table) in the file name and in the brief, so nobody pastes a 2013 A into a 365 toolbar.
- Use the official icon for that generation as the master. A downloaded SVG, an ICO extracted from a client install, or a PNG with a transparent background is still only a copy of a trademarked mark. Availability is not permission.
- Keep app icon, wordmark and file-type icon in separate files. Do not build the word “Access” into the table artwork unless you are drawing a lockup on purpose.
- For UI work, prefer Microsoft’s size-specific icons over a single master scaled down. The table grid is the element that fails first at 16 px.
- For print, presentations or documentation, reproduce color from the same official set. Do not sample a compressed screenshot; JPEG and OS overlays shift the burgundy.
- For historical materials, keep the key-and-A, the flat A tile and the table icon in dated folders. They are three identities, not three weights of one logo.
Gaps to close before you treat this as final spec
No official vector, construction grid, or color token is attached to this article, so path geometry, cell count, stroke width, corner radius and exact brand color remain unverified here. Microsoft has also iterated Office icons more than once since the first Fluent set; a later shell may flatten the extrusion while keeping the table. Confirm the mark against the icon pack for the product version you ship. Trademark use, including in client work, tutorials and redistributable templates, follows Microsoft’s current brand rules rather than the fact that a vector file can be opened in a drawing app.