Can you imagine a world before Wikipedia? A few years ago, the internet was just finding its voice, and universal knowledge seemed a long way off. But who could have imagined it would become what it is today, let alone its creators?
In 2000, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger had an incredible idea: an online, free, collaborative encyclopedia accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world.
This dream later became Wikipedia, an ambitious evolution of Nupedia, a then-recognized scholarly resource.
Although Nupedia was a slower and more traditional project, with articles written and reviewed by professional scientists, it completed 25 entries in three years, with 74 more in progress, even with limited production.
This initial approach laid the groundwork for what would become a revolution in information sharing. Then 2008, CNET Networks honored its legacy by calling Nupedia one of the largest dormant sites in history.
But the roots of Wikipedia’s magic go back even further, to 1995 when Ward G. Cunningham introduced the world to the concept of “wiki.”
Borrowing the Hawaiian word for “fast,” Cunningham christened his first user-editing system WikiWikiWeb. This set the tone for future Wikipedia collaborations.
Today, Wikipedia symbolizes collective knowledge. Its iconic logo—a globe made of puzzle pieces with glyphs from various writing systems—is intentionally unfinished, a reminder of humanity’s ongoing quest to piece together the world’s history.
From its humble beginnings to its global impact, Wikipedia inspires curiosity and connection in ways few could have imagined decades ago.
It all started in 2001 with this patriotic symbol, the United States of America flag. As its creators are Americans, this became Wikipedia’s first logo.
But this one lasted just for a few months after a new and better-conceptualized logo came along.
Then again, in 2001, we saw where the logo intentions were heading visually. It had a white circle shape inspired by the planet’s shape, filled with machine-type-like letters that formed various words in black, and two black vertical stripes that came from the top and the bottom of the front of the circle.
Between 2001 and 2003, a new and cleaner version of the first logo appeared, now with the typography of Wikipedia, which has all capital letters with a bit more giant W at the beginning of the word and a bigger A at the end of the word.
Also, below the name, a slogan with smaller letters matches the length of the name size, claiming “The Free Encyclopedia”, what the authors always wanted to be.
Also, this refined circle had a much cleaner letter, better readability, and a thin outline of the globe without the two black vertical stripes.
In 2003 we can see the evolution of this first globe shape into the puzzle pieces made of, some of these in colors as blue, green, yellow, and red, and the others in gray.
Now with many more words but all in multiple languages and colors, demonstrating the worldwide knowledge.
These pieces don’t close the globe at the top to show us that the world is empty inside, and also tell us it is in constant formation, like always welcoming new information. In this latest version, the Wikipedia word is slightly thinner and without the slogan below.
From 2003 until 2010, the vision started to modernize a lot with a 3d shape of the globe in grayscale, which was now made of puzzle pieces that have written on a symbol or letter in a different language, from Chinese, Arabic, Latin, and so on, representing the multicultural information that can be found in this worldwide encyclopedia.
The typography disappears, leaving this logo as just a logotype.
Then, from 2010 until today, the logo incorporated the typography name and slogan again from that previous logo, with some slightly thinner letters and a cleaner appearance.
Here, we can see two versions that also appeared in 2003 in Europe. The left one is for the Swedish Wikipedia, with the colors and cross of their flag.
The right one is for the French Wikipedia, which is very different from any other design, as a green circle with a dove at the tip of it.
Check out these awesome Logo Contests run on Hatchwise:
