Metro is an internal design language designed by Microsoft for current use in Windows Phone 7 and the upcoming Windows 8. It is based almost entirely on the Segoe font family designed by Steve Matteson under the category of sans-serif in the year 2004 and has been widely used in Windows Media Center, Zune and Xbox. It goes with the precept "Simple. Clean. Modern."
Metro is regarded as an interface which appreciates the beauty of typography and neglects redundant flashy eye-candies for maximum viewing pleasure and space utilization. The experience is further enhanced by animations, transitions and true-to-life motions intended to provide users with a lively responsive UI experience. The language itself is licensed under proprietary EULA with certain open source components. The font itself is distributed openly under the software Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.
The new interface of Windows 8 is designed based on the Metro design language. Although the current Windows 8 is yet under development and subject to release in several months from now, videos of its reveal and features are found all over the internet. The focus of Metro-based-Windows-8 is to deliver a revolutionary user experience and a modern feeling at your fingertips. Information is portrayed systematically across the homepage and each tile represents a different function, from system information, social updates to weather and apps.
Verdict: I am a huge fan of Metro. The impression it gives to the general public is a clean-laid experience coupled with the ability to understand information at a glance. It does not hog system resources and further reduces load times. It provides a clean, straightforward elegance that embodies a relaxed eye-pleasure.
Here is the attached download link of the Segoe UI font family, however if you have Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 installed it is already there. The following font folder is extracted from the respective software and is openly distributed under its respective distribution license.
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