Meaning and History

One of the world’s most famous marketplaces, eBay, started in 1995 as AuctionWeb and stayed like that for two years. So the original logo of the website has nothing in common with the iconic colorful emblem we all know today.

1995 — 1997

The logo, introduced for AuctionWeb in 1995 was a very simple and usual monochrome badge, composed of a horizontally stretched rectangle with a thin black outline. The left and the wider, part of the badge had a black “Auction” lettering on it, while the right and more narrow part of the emblem was colored black and had “Web” in white written. The typeface of the wordmark was bold and sans-serif, and in some versions the contours were clean and neat, while in others the structure of the letters was in pixels.

1997 — 1999

The company was renamed to eBay in 1997, and the new logo appeared in the same year. Now it was even a more minimalist logotype, written in black on a white background with no frames or additional details. The inscription was executed in a bold typeface with elongated and distinct serifs and had all the letters capitalized, and the “B” enlarged.

1999 — 2012

The redesign of 1999 brought the iconic colorful emblem to the marketplace. It was a logotype in the lowercase, with the “Y” capitalized. Each letter of the inscription featured its color and was transparent, so the overlapping effect felt stronger. The letters were placed unevenly jumping, and the size and wideness also varied, pointing to the assortment and diversity of items you could find on the website.

2012 — Today

In the fall of 2012, the company unveiled its new logo. It was developed by the US brand consultancy Lippincott, a well-known brand strategy and design company. When announcing the new emblem, eBay mentioned that it was supposed to symbolize the way the customer experience had changed, the fact that it had become “cleaner, more contemporary, and consistent.”

In what way were these concepts reflected on the logo? To begin with, the glyphs now didn’t overlap. Also, the zigzag effect was gone: the letters were lined up. The shift in the palette and the “Y” only emphasized the more consistent and serious look of the emblem.

The name of the brand included the originally desired name – Echo Bay – and the bitterness of the fact that the domain name was taken. However, since the first days of its operation, this Internet project has been known for its openness and focus on development. The evidence is hidden in its colored letters – each painted in its own color – which make up the logo. And, of course, the constant expansion of the product line.

To sum up, while the first version was highly distinctive, it brought to mind a quirky startup. The updated emblem, in its turn, better fit an established tech company – something the shareholders were probably pleased to see.

Original Symbol

When the platform was launched, it didn’t have a real logo. All you could see was a simple lettering “EBAY” in black capital letters (all given in the Times New Roman font). The same year, it was replaced by a professional logo designed by Elissa Davis from CKS Partners in California. In fact, it was her first project at the company. She colored each of the letters in a bright color and placed them at a different height. As Davis later recalled, she was inspired by the palette of the Apple logo and the fun movement of the popular game Twister. The overlapping glyphs were supposed to reflect the sense of community characteristic for the platform.

Font

Apart from the first version (which didn’t actually have the status of an official logo), the eBay logo has always been based on the Univers typeface. This fact may surprise you, as, at first glance, the current logo looks in no way like the previous one. That’s because the original logo featured a bolder version of the Univers font, while the current logo sported a thinner one. Also, the capital “Y” of the first-word mark was replaced by a lowercase one.

Colors

The palette has always included four colors: red, green, blue, and yellow. However, the second version of the logo features slightly different, lighter shades.

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