X Logo

X Logo PNG

Although Twitter went through a difficult period following its acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022, it has remained one of the world’s most-visited websites even after it was rebranded X several months later.

Meaning and history

Twitter, the predecessor of X, went live in July 2006 under the name of twttr. The name was changed to Twitter just months later. The platform experienced rapid initial growth and became one of the leading social networking services in the world. Having acquired the company, Elon Musk acted as its CEO until June 2023, when Linda Yaccarino replaced him. Over the following couple of years, the platform was rebranded as X and got quite several additional features.

What is X?
One of the world’s largest social media platforms, X is the successor of Twitter. The company headquartered in Bastrop, Texas, has been the property of X since 2023.

2023 – Today

When on July 22, 2023, Elon Musk claimed he was going to rename Twitter, his words only fueled the fierce controversy that already surrounded the platform since he had purchased it. This didn’t stop the rebrand, though, and just a couple of days later, a new logo was formally introduced.

It wasn’t made by an in-house designer, but was created by Alex J. Tourville for his own old podcast around 2021. Another host of this podcast, Saywer Merritt, replied to Musk’s post suggesting to use his logo and even added a modified, thinner version.

Interestingly, the symbol that is used as the logo, is part of the Unicode, so it can be easily written as text. The character is called Mathematical Double-struck Capital X.

The public reaction to the logo update wasn’t much different from the reaction to what was going on in the company at that time. Mike Carr, a co-founder of the branding company NameStormers, claimed the updated design had a “’Big Brother’ tech overlord vibe,” while Miles Klee from Rolling Stone complained that it “reeks of desperation.”

Font and Color

According to Saywer Merritt, the original, thicker version of the icon was inspired by a font he found online. It was Special Alphabets 4 by Monotype. Another typography inspiration was STIX Two Math.

The black and white color scheme is a universal design decision for cases when a logo is supposed to be used extensively on a variety of media and in various combinations. Given how many other brands Musk fully or partly owns, this seems a logical solution.