GIF Inventor Stephen Wilhite Passes Away At Age 74

Stephen Wilhite at the 2013 Webby Awards. Video screenshot via The Webby Awards

Stephen Wilhite, the American computer scientist who created the Graphics Interchange Format, has passed on at the age of 74, as confirmed by his wife Kathaleen.

Wilhite died of COVID-19 on March 14, a little over a week after his 74th birthday on March 3.

He had his head-start at Compuserve, the first major commercial online service provider in the US and the oldest of the “Big Three information services” back in the day. He spent decades working there, and a fateful project saw him lead the team behind the iconic GIF format.

At the inception of the GIF in 1987, engineers had intended to create a format for color images that users could easily download using slow dial-up modem speeds.

In 2013, Wilhite split opinions when he declared at the Webby Awards, where he’d been given the lifetime achievement award, that GIF was pronounced as “Jif,” like the peanut butter brand.

He is survived by his wife, son, four stepchildren, 11 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

[via Kotaku and NBC News, cover image via Webby Awards]