I bet a number of you will recognize the following logo: on the left side of the picture is the cute bird on his branch as used by Twitter (you see it on their home page when you are logged off, or on the Support page). What about the right side?
I stumbled upon this logo this morning on a book cover: Quand vous lirez ce livre…, French edition for a book entitled Ways to live forever.
Out of curiosity I looked for some information about the cover design but, oddly enough, couldn't find any copyright or credit.
Is this (definitely beautiful) Twitter bird on his branch a public domain photo from some stock image website?
Update: thanks a comment by johnbillion (read below), the case is solved: this is a stock image. I find it rather surprising from a strong brand such as Twitter to use stock images as logos instead of a custom made and exclusive one.
Shorter URL
Want to share or tweet this post? Please use this short URL: http://ozh.in/k3
Seeing the web 2.0 culture, it could be either. I'm just hoping Twitter is not the one who stole…
Apologies for a blog URL in the above comment, it was auto filled by a user script. I saw the link just before hitting enter – please do delete this comment and/or edit the URL in above.
I wish you had the comment editing plugin here… ;)
I'm not sure about the stealing. At one point in 2007 I was converting my blog from MovableType to WordPress and looking for for a fitting theme. I can't remember now which one I picked (I changed in the mean time), but the runner-up was the Bluebird theme by Randa Clay. Looks familiar? The creation date of the files is 2007-06-14.
I don't remember when Twitter went public, but I didn't think Twitter was very popular yet at that time (I could be wrong though). Even then, I'm not sure if they used that logo already in June 2007 and if not, when they started using it. I tried searching the Internet Archive but that didn't make me any wiser.
Anyway, I didn't recognized the logo in the Bluebird theme as belonging to Twitter then.
Just my 5¢.
oriste » I'm definitely not sure either and that well may be a "free" image (and on top of everything don't want to seem like I'm accusing anyone :) Anyway, nice find about the WordPress theme.
I've seen this mentioned before so it could well be that the image was originally a stock image. The bird was also spotted on a print ad.
johnbillion » nice find! Case solved :)
You used to be able to download that image on istockphoto.com. Twitter may have bought the exclusive right to it.
Big brands have also amateur spirit to continue their existence. But that does not make them unprofessional.
Simon Oxley is the originator of both images. The twitter bird can be purchased here in fact.
Famous twitter bird: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/concepts-and-ideas/time/3412146-eco-sing-song.php?id=3412146
Similar bird: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/concepts-and-ideas/time/4237042-take-flight.php?id=4237042
Dino: nice finds, thanks
Check out my twitter logo:
http://jela.hu
:-)