Android has long used its famous mascot, bugdroid. But there’s a lesser-known, somewhat creepy earlier mascot that thankfully never saw the light of day.
A few weeks ahead of Android 14’s release, Google gave a 3D design makeover to the Android mascot. The bugdroid -– as the community calls it — got a full-body refresh and appeared in various jazzy iterations. Over the years, the Android logo has also been refined to make it easier to read. What has remained a constant is an affable, almost cute brand identity. However, the original Android mascot was anything but.
In a post (via AndroidCommunity) on Google Plus — the dead Google social media platform -– one of the core members of the Android team shared tentative sketches of the mascot. Google’s Dan Morrill referred to it as the « Dandroids. » Presumably, the name came from combining Android with his own name, but the « D » at the beginning could also stand for dizzying (look at those eyes), disturbing, or disconcerting.
Imagine a world where Futurama’s Bender was tasked with sketching a humanoid robot assistant, and he came up with a gruesomely colorful machine with magnetic tongs for fingers.
