Elon Musk Ditches Twitter’s Iconic Bird Logo, To Rebrand It To Just ‘X’
Aside from placing a limit on how many direct messages “unverified” users can send daily, Twitter’s back with yet another change. This time, it’s major—with owner Elon Musk poised to rebrand the entire social media platform to ‘X.’
In a series of tweets, the billionaire shared that soon, Twitter will no longer be Twitter. In fact, the company is planning on axing the site’s iconic bird emblem altogether.
According to Platformer’s Zoe Schiffer, an email was later sent to all employees, with Musk noting that that would be the “last email he’ll ever send” bearing the platform’s current address.
And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023
“And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk tweeted. He later added in a Space that the logo would be changed as soon as Sunday, taking on the meaning “to embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique.”
As Engadget pointed out, this isn’t the first time Musk has shown favor for the letter ‘X’. Previously, the mogul founded a banking startup in 1999 called x.com, and of course, his latest company—an artificial intelligence (AI) venture—was named xAI.
There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything. @elonmusk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world.
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) July 23, 2023
“There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well… everything. Elon Musk and I are looking forward to working with our teams and every single one of our partners to bring X to the world,” CEO Linda Yaccarino pledged.
There was essentially no brief, other than we want a new bird, and it should be as good as the Apple and Nike logo. Twitter had made some sort of flying goose - but Jack wanted something simpler pic.twitter.com/ruR52lZtLL
— martin grasser (@martingrasser) July 24, 2023
It remains to be seen if Twitter users will welcome such a massive overhaul or if the social media site will lose the appeal it held for over a decade. Allen Adamson, co-founder of marketing consultancy Metaforce, told The Guardian he felt it was the latter.
Adamson explained that the sudden switch to ‘X’ would be confusing for many old-timers on the platform, even going so far as to call the move “a fitting end to a phenomenal unwinding of an iconic brand and business.”
As we bid goodbye to one of social media’s most recognizable logos, learn more about how the original bird icon came to be in the thread below.
I was also trying to capture the motion of birds, and the shape that profile created led us to play with that round belly in the 3rd and 4th sketches pic.twitter.com/8ZEAU17Sx4
— martin grasser (@martingrasser) July 24, 2023
From that point on we really spent our time perfecting every little detail... so that it felt balanced, and visible as a bird at the smallest of sizes. pic.twitter.com/fkueKzmST7
— martin grasser (@martingrasser) July 24, 2023
Sometime in March we had an approved bird and it launched in May of 2012.
— martin grasser (@martingrasser) July 24, 2023
This little blue bird did so much over the last 11 years, 🫡 pic.twitter.com/EnO7j3mSH4
[via Engadget and The Guardian, cover image via Serkan Uzunyol | Dreamstime.com]
