By Prabhakar Mundkur
As you all perhaps know Twitter’s official mascot until a day ago, was a bird and the bird’s name is Larry. According to a tweet by co-founder Biz Stone, it is called Larry the Bird as a tribute to Larry Bird who played for the Boston Celtics.
I was caught unawares when my friends on a WhatsApp group of intellectuals told me that the Twitter logo had changed into an X. What? Why?
I hastily opened my Twitter app only to see the familiar bird on a patch of blue as the opening screen.
Wait a minute. For some time, I couldn’t see the X. Then a friend said he had opened it on his computer. I quickly rushed to my laptop and open Twitter. It took me some time to see a weak little X tucked away in the corner of my screen. And the language was the same. It said tweet.
I then rushed to the App Store to check what the logo on the download would reveal. Once again, I was welcomed by Larry, and that told me that the new X branding was far from complete.
I had never thought about it before but the logic of the previous branding fell into place. Twitter because that is the short high-pitched sound that birds make. That is why you tweet. So what was the logic for renaming it X?
Elon Musk elaborated: “Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing.
The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140-character messages going back and forth – like birds tweeting – but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video.
In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.”
Yes, so I got it. You have long videos instead of 140 words. But you tweeted on Twitter. The logic was solid and unquestionable. My question to Elon is what do you do on X? You still tweet as indeed the image above seems to suggest. Something wrong here. Why am I still tweeting on X?
Now coming to the logo which was the weakest part of my computer screen when I opened Twitter. For a moment, I thought some highfalutin design company had probably charged Elon a few million dollars for a new logo and made a few quick bucks.
But here is the ultimate disappointment. It is simply the letter X from the Special Alphabets 4 font which you can buy on the internet for $29.99. Now that is cheapest logo I have ever come across for a major corporation.
Now I have no pretensions to being an expert typographer but after having spent more than 45 years in advertising I do think I can tell a bad logo from a good one.
But enough said. Farewell, Larry. Hello, X, whoever you are and whatever you want to be. Please introduce yourself!