As Twitter Logo Gets Replaced, A Look At The History Of Iconic Blue Bird

Twitter boss Elon Musk announced a rebranding of the social media company that will replace its well-known blue bird logo with an X after acknowledging advertisers have been slow to return. The change, which is still not evident on the website, followed Mr Musk's recent admission that advertising revenue remains nearly half of what it once was. The blue bird logo has been synonymous with Twitter, and remained unchanged since 2012. That design was introduced by Twitter's former creative director, Doug Bowman.

Also Read | After Rebranding Twitter, Elon Musk's New Title Will Be...

Founded in 2006, Twitter takes its name from a play on the sound of birds chattering, and it has used avian branding since its early days, when the company bought a stock symbol of a light blue bird for $15, according to the design website Creative Bloq.

The latest logo, which is being replace with X, resembles a mountain bluebird with a dash of hummingbird thrown in. Mr Bowman told the New York Times (NYT) that the Twitter bird has a beak and body that point toward the sky as "the ultimate representation of freedom, hope and limitless possibility".

All the previous iterations were named "Larry the Bird" after the Boston Celtics legend, but the current logo is known as the Twitter Bird.

The original Larry was created by Simon Oxley, a British graphic designer, as per NYT. He had offered the illustration for sale on iStock website in 2006.

The original logo was a slender, serene bird with a stylised eye and perched on a branch that split off into an elegant Japanese-influenced gathering of curlicues.

Twitter had to give up that design because companies aren't permitted to user iStock images as official logos. So, in 2009, a company founder Christopher Isaac (also known as Biz Stone) came up with the initial design of the first in-house bird logo with the help of Philip Pascuzzo, a designer.

A year later, they refined the logo further, creating another version that was less cartoonish and was eventually streamlined by Mr Bowman.