I believe that when you understand the GO language, you have often seen a blue gopher appear in your eyes, it gives GO language and other languages different charm, give people a relaxed and happy feeling, it is the GO language mascot Gopher. Later in 2018, GO launched its new Brand with the Reservation Rat as its mascot.
So when you look at this gopher, do you ever wonder where it came from and how it evolved?
This article is a large number of excerpts from the official blog and other articles, pictures are from its website, no copyright.
- The Go Gopher
- Golang logo
- Go’s New Brand
- website
Go gopher
Go Gopher is an iconic mascot and a feature of the Go project.
Gopher first appeared around 1999, long before Go, to facilitate the development of WFMU radio station in New Jersey. When Renee French was commissioned to design t-shirts for the annual fundraiser, the little gopher appeared.
Next, Bob Flandrena’s face of the gopher appears in the Bell LABS mail system at Bell LABS.
When the Go project first started, a logo was needed, and Renee volunteered to draw it. It appeared on the first Go T-shirt and on the Google Code website.
At the 2009 open Source release, Renee suggested gopher, adapted from WFMU, as the mascot. Go Gopher was born:
(The rat didn’t have a name; it was just called Go Gopher.)
When the Go App Engine runs on Google I/O 2011, Squishable was hired to create a spooky gopher. This is the first time a gopher has been dyed blue and shown in real life. The first prototype was a bit hairy:
The second is much more normal:
So Gopher exists in many forms, but it has always been Renee’s work. It represents the GO project and GO programmers everywhere, and is one of the most popular things in the GO world.
Go Gopher was an original character. Not any old-fashioned gopher, any more than Snoopy is any old-fashioned cartoon dog.
Gopher images are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. This means you can play with the images, but you have to give credit to their creator (Renee French) whenever you use them anywhere.
New logo
In 2018, GO announced its new logo on its official blog, which is very much in keeping with its current simplicity, while keeping our gopher as the mascot.
Go’s new brand is about our identity, our values and our users. Over the past few months, we have worked with a brand agency to develop a brand guide for Go. Our agency Within has coordinated with the great foundation established by Renee French and built a new brand on it. Rest assured, the beloved Gopher mascot is still at the heart of our brand.
Steve Francia, –
Since then, the GO site and community have been built around the new icon.
But apparently a lot of people still miss the old Gopher.
Now when you go to the website, you can see two ICONS on the website:
