“Twitter is the bird, the bird is Twitter,” the former creative director of the social networking company, Doug Bowman, said in a 2012 announcement regarding the most recent redesign of the Twitter logo. Its slightly goofier predecessor had a tufted head and was sometimes accompanied by the company’s name; the new bird for Bowman was a sleeker update. The Twitter bird, which resembles a mountain bluebird with a hint of a hummingbird, has a beak and body that point toward the sky and was described by Bowman as “the ultimate representation of freedom, hope, and limitless possibility.” In contrast to previous iterations since the company’s launch in 2006, all of which were named “Larry the Bird” after the Boston Celtics legend, the current logo is simply known as the Twitter Bird.
The original Larry, to which the current icon bears little resemblance, was created by British graphic designer Simon Oxley, who has since created numerous mascots for online businesses. The bluebird was merely one of the illustrations he offered for sale on the iStock website in 2006, where it was purchased by Twitter for approximately $15 (you can still download a variation of it for only $11). As early adopters of the platform may recall, Oxley’s bird is a slender, serene creature, adorned with only a stylized eye and perched on a branch that splits into an elegant Japanese-inspired collection of curlicues.
When Twitter chose his design, Oxley was unaware that the company even existed. “I seem to recall a friend emailing me about it,” he explains. “It was exciting to observe more and more sightings and to see CNN and the BBC mention it alongside images of my bird.” Because companies are not permitted to use iStock images as logos, Twitter quickly abandoned Oxley’s bird. Biz Stone, a company founder, created the initial design for the first in-house bird logo, which was refined in 2009 by designer Philip Pascuzzo. A year later, they created yet another version of the logo with the cartoonish elements removed, which Bowman eventually refined into its current form.
Despite the fact that Oxley’s bird is no longer in widespread circulation, he remains a devoted fan of the species and expresses only pleasure at having been a part of the history of tech startups. “I enjoy birds tremendously,” he says. “I grew up in the countryside of England, surrounded by them. The dawn chorus begins daily at 4:00 a.m.” Tweet, tweet.
