Twitter recently gave a makeover to Larry aka the bird that goes with the tweets that have come to define the twitter brand. They changed the orientation and the branding guidelines. They made him more upright and gave him a hair (I mean vector) cut. It is nice and all but being a more nuanced change, does anyone really care. Twitter is my go to social network and the video showing off the slight changes to the iconic bird has lots of hits but whatever.
When twitter was a much younger social network designers and all sorts of folks played with Larry, giving the bird personality and presence through their play with the iconic bird. The logo that is now in the rear view mirror had a slight twang of personality.
The hair felt young and wings arc upward. This new and improved Larry (who gets his name from the Basketball star Larry Bird) swoop up and feels more slick. The play you could unconsciously sense is gone, the new Larry is more slick and streamlined. Since twitter has been around for several years which is a lifetime in tech maybe it was time for Twitter’s Larry to grow up and leave that playful nature behind.
The way Twitter made the change was with as little fanfare as possible with them releasing a YouTube video showcasing the new look for Larry. They gave very specific brand guidelines so that when people use the twitter logo, it will conform to the brand they want to cultivate from this point on.
I wish they would have allowed people to play on Larry, they will do it no matter what. It shows that people are willing to take the time to take their logo and add a bit of themselves to it. Sorry those days are gone, and while the new Larry is slick, the old one had personality but I guess as a communication that personality had to grow up at some point, sadly that day has come.
It’s still Larry the bird that people tweeted with when using twitter but bald and a little less personality. I loved how people used to make the logo into a toon bird which added flavour to the entire brand intentionally or not. You make be smoother Larry but I liked your old cut fine, fly free, Larry, fly free.