Jira is a bug tracking product. The name comes from the truncated word “Gojira,” which, in translation from Japanese, means “Godzilla.” The company explains that many years ago, developers in Atlassian would call their internal bug-tracking product “Bugzilla,” which later inspired the name of the commercial product.
Meaning and history
The Jira logo has been updated multiple times. Yet, despite all the updates, it has always preserved the connection with the visual brand identity of its parent company Atlassian.
2002 – 2007
Originally, Jira looked pretty similar to other web apps of that era. The Jira logo was unpretentious – just the four letters of the name of the brand. Even the choice of the type, a generic all-caps sans, didn’t tell anything about the brand. The glyphs were quite heavy and elongated.
We should point out, though, that on the website, the wordmark was placed next to the emblem of Atlassian (Atlas holding the sky above his head). So, in a way, Jira just didn’t need an emblem of its own.
2008 – 2011
While in the original logo the Atlas emblem was to the right of the wordmark, now, the positions of the elements were reversed. The type looks slightly bolder. The combination of colors (white letters and light blue emblem over the dark blue background) remained almost unchanged with maybe only a slight shift.
Also, the way the Atlas figure looked slightly changed (this reflected the update of the parent company’s logo).
2011 – 2016
Over a comparatively short timespan in the 2010s, the “sky” held by Atlas was made up of white circles.
2017 – 2017
A dramatically different Jira logo was introduced.
To begin with, the uppercase type was replaced by a combination of a capitalized initial and lowercase letters (“Jira” instead of “JIRA”). The wordmark was set in a rather light sans, the glyphs were black.
The emblem can be described as a combination of three partly overlapping arrowheads. They were pointing to the top right corner, thus symbolizing the company’s strive for excellence and openness to the future.
In addition to the main logo, there were also separate logotypes for Jira Software (a square with a hole in the center), Jira Service Desk (hourglass), and Jira Core (a single large arrowhead).
As Atlassian explain in the corporate blog, the basic elements used on the logotypes were inspired by what was core to Jira Software, like code brackets, connoting development teams.
2017-present
Atlassian has modified its range of products over time, which results in multiple logo updates. As of 2020, the following products have the word “Jira” in their names:
– Jira Software (a square standing on one of its corners. The square is made up of two arrowheads).
– Jira Align (there are also two arrowheads, but instead of forming a square, they are slightly shifted in opposite directions).
– Jira Work Management (this one looks like a helix).
– Jira Service Management (hourglass slightly rotated counterclockwise and standing on its lower left angle).
That is not to say that the logotypes are dramatically different. Conversely, they do convey the impression of being part of a single family (the family of Atlassian products, in this case). This result is partly due to the blue palette, partly due to the type used for the wordmark, as well as the position and proportions of the elements.
Colors and font
Similar to the logotypes of other Atlassian products, Jira logo is available in three palettes: blue, neutral, and white.
The type is Charlie Sans, which is used for the wordmark of other Atlassian products, too.
What is Jira
Jira is a product used for issue tracking and project management. It was developed by Australian company Atlassian, whose products are used by software development teams and individual software developers.