Is This What the Android Mascot Could Have Looked Like?

January 5, 2013 2 min read

Today’s Android mascot is a ubiquitous symbol that appears in TV advertisements and the banner of just about every Android website – including One Click Root. But that cute green alien might never have existed if one designer had his way. Google’s Dan Morrill recently released a couple pictures of the first Android avatars. They were the first mascots used in early discussions for Google’s flagship mobile operating system way back in 2007. And apparently, the two robots were quite popular among the design team.

dandroids

The droids were called Dandroids. Because – as you might recall from two sentences ago – they were designed by Dan Morrill. Morrill showcased the pair of droids via his Google+ page and Morill admittedly says that releasing them to the general public would have been a strange marketing decision: “I figured I’d share them so you can experience a thrill of terror at what might have been, and thank your local patron deity for Irina’s incredible home run.” For those who aren’t on a first-name basis with Google’s Android development team, ‘Irina’ is Irina Blok, the designer who created the Android avatar we all know and love today.

dandroids

The pictures were apparently dug up from an old server that Morrill was cleaning out. They didn’t take more than a couple hours on Inkscape to make and Morrill even refuses to call them robots, instead calling them “things” that were just designed as “eye candy” for early development slides that the team was putting together. green