X, formerly but still commonly known as Twitter, is an online social media and social networking service currently owned and operated by the American company X Corp., the legal successor to Twitter, Inc..
Twttr[]
2006 (prototype)[]
Designer:
Biz Stone
Typography:
Custom
Launched:
2006
The first Twitter prototype was created as an internal communication service for Odeo employees. The name "Twttr" was inspired by Flickr and the five-character length of American SMS short codes. It was also partly due to the fact that the "twitter.com" domain was already in use.
In October 2006, the creators of Twitter and other members of the Odeo team formed the Obvious Corporation. The newly-formed company would then acquire Odeo and the "twitter.com" domain, allowing for the service to be launched as Twitter the following month.
Twitter remained owned and operated by Obvious Corporation until Twitter, Inc. was spun off into an independent company in April 2007.
2010–2012[]
Designer:
Futurefarmers
Typography:
Custom
Launched:
October 14, 2010
On September 14, 2010, the Larry the Bird mascot was previewed, and the wordmark was revised. One month later, on October 14, 2010, the logo was officially launched.
2012–2023[]
Designer:
Martin Grasser (from West)
Typography:
None
Launched:
June 7, 2012
In June 2012, a new logo was introduced. The wordmark was completely removed, leaving the new bird icon to stand out on its own. The bird was now referred to as the Twitter Bird.[3]
X[]
2023–present[]
Designer:
In-house designer (based on the design of Alex J. Tourville and Sawyer Merritt)
Typography:
Special Alphabets 4 (modified), STIX Two Math
Launched:
July 23, 2023 (unveiling) July 24, 2023 (launch)
On July 23, 2023, Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform, teased a rebrand of Twitter to X.[4] A thicker version of this logo was originally designed by Alex J. Tourville for his now-discontinued podcast in 2021. Sawyer Merritt, another host of the same podcast, unveiled a thinner, modified version of the logo on July 23, and both hosts had publicly given Elon Musk permission to use the logo for free that same day.[5]
The X logo used the Unicode character Mathematical Double-struck Capital X (𝕏) as the logo commonly written as text.
On July 24, 2023, the logo was officially launched, replacing the Twitter Bird logo after eleven years with the final iteration, and nearly seventeen years after the first Twitter bird was introduced. The new name has not fully rolled out, and the original Twitter name is currently still used for many of X's pages and properties, including the X Corp. headquarters as well as the main URL itself (twitter.com) with the domain name formerly used for the defunct online banking site of the same name (x.com) redirecting to the address.
