Behind The Many Twitter Logo Changes Before And After Elon Musk
Twitter has been marked by the little blue bird for years, but how did the logo come about, what were Twitter’s past logos, and why did Musk decide to replace it?
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00:00 After a decade of Twitter's iconic bird logo, the well-known symbol has been laid
00:04 to rest by Elon Musk.
00:10 Twitter has been marked by the little blue bird for years, but how did the logo come
00:14 about, what were Twitter's past logos, and why did Elon Musk decide to replace it?
00:19 Twitter was first created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams.
00:24 The platform originally served to be a place where groups of people could send messages
00:28 back and forth, very similar to group texting.
00:30 The first Twitter logo may look alien to fans of the platform today, sporting a font in
00:35 green color not dissimilar to Nickelodeon's Slime or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
00:40 Luckily, this logo never reached the public.
00:43 Instead, the first public Twitter logo featured a Y2K-friendly and bubbly font, and the iconic
00:48 light blue Twitter became associated with.
00:50 The first tweet was written on March 21, 2006, and simply read "Just setting up my Twitter."
00:55 Just a couple months later, in July, the app debuted to web users.
00:59 The first Twitter bird was actually created in 2006, after British graphic designer Simon
01:03 Oxley put a blue bird on a stock image website.
01:06 A Twitter employee bought the design for $15.
01:08 However, because major companies aren't allowed to use stock images for logos, Twitter
01:12 opted for a redesign.
01:14 Twitter experienced its next logo change four years later in 2010, when Biz Stone transformed
01:19 the iconic blue bird into something more cartoonish.
01:21 By 2012, Twitter arrived at the bird logo users know and love today.
01:25 In 2012, Twitter's former creative director Doug Bowman said, "Twitter is the bird.
01:30 The bird is Twitter."
01:31 A statement that did not end up aging too well.
01:34 Longtime CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, took his final step down after leaving and returning
01:38 a few times in May of 2022.
01:40 While Elon Musk toyed with the stock market and buying Twitter for months, the company
01:44 has finally ended up under his watch.
01:47 As of July 24, 2023, Twitter officially changed its logo to the letter X.
01:51 In a Twitter Space audio chat, Musk said, "We're cutting the Twitter logo off the
01:55 building with blowtorches."
01:57 Though not many are fans of the change, it seems as though it's here to stay.
02:01 To keep up to date with the fate of Twitter and for all your trending news, find us everywhere
02:04 at What's Trending.
02:06 [Whooshing sounds]
02:10 [BLANK_AUDIO]