Internet Company Logos

eBay.com Logo - Design and History

 

eBay Inc. is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. In addition to its original U.S. website, eBay has established localized websites in several other countries. eBay Inc also owns PayPal, Skype, and other businesses. eBay.com is now one of the largest internet sites in the world and hosts millions of auctions at any given point on time.

The eBay logo has intrigued me because its so simple and childlike in a way, but I have never been able to find out the origin of the logo until I stumbled upon one of the articles listed below in the reference section.

eBay.com started as an auction site in September of 1995 under the name AuctionWeb. The first logo that it put up was simple black text that said Auction logo on a black and white gradient bar. This logo was apparently referred to as the "Death Bar" logo (shown above)

The current logo was designed by Bill Cleary of the CKS group. The current logo was picked out of the many logos that were designed. Some of the key aspects are listed below

•  The primary colors of the logo depict fun, excitement and childlike energy. 
•  The overlapping letters of the logo are suggestive of the bonding within the eBay user community. 
•  The letters are not on the same level, they have what graphic artists call €œbaseline shift€. It gives the logo an offbeat feel and shows that company is not averse to change and that its a dynamic company that is always evolving. 
•  The unusual capitalization of the letters also shows that company accepts change when it is for good. Letter B is not capitalized in the logo even though the name of the company is written as eBay. Designers at CKS thought a capital B would look like a roadblock in the middle of the logo so they capitalized letter Y instead.

Other Trivia

Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. "Echo Bay" didn't refer to the town in Nevada, the nature area close to Lake Mead, or to any real place. "It just sounded cool," Omidyar reportedly said. When he tried to register EchoBay.com, though, he found that Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had gotten it first. So, Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.
 

Source:

http://www.logotales.com/wp/?p=15
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_name_etymologies

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