Netflix Logo History – The Giant Web Streaming Service

This post originally appeared on One Design Pro.

Netflix was founded in 1997, in California and started as a DVD rental and sale company that mailed movies ordered to customers. However, the initial service was modified later to focus on Netflix to become a strictly rental company. In 2007, it introduced its streaming service and quickly rose to fame, becoming the media giant it is now.

Just like the company rebranded, its logo evolved over the years from a sharp and outdated design to a minimalistic, simple symbol that is now recognized at a global level. Read on to uncover the Netflix logo history and the evolution of this successful streaming company.

Table of Contents

• The History of Netflix: The Origins
• New Year, New Netflix
• Netflix Streaming Service Begins
• The Evolution of the Netflix Logo
• The History behind Netflix’s Logo
• The Beginner’s Design
• Netflix’s Winning Logo
• Netflix Today!
• Conclusion

The History of Netflix: The Origins

Netflix was founded in 1997, in California by Marc Rudolph and Reed Hastings, who named it Kibble. Inspired by the operations of Amazon and its ability to deliver goods on a huge scale, they worked together to create a DVD delivery platform on the same lines.

After delivering to one another to figure out the validity of this idea, they went ahead with it and launched a unique home video rental and sales company. With only a handful of workers, and nine hundred movie titles, Netflix commenced its business operations.

Customers were required to place an order on their webpage and would receive their selected movies in the mail. After their rental period was over, the movie had to be returned in the same envelope it was delivered in, with a $6 charge for both postage and the cost of the rental.

Once Netflix picked up business, a year after its establishment, the company offered a $15 monthly subscription fee and unlimited DVD rentals. This new feature allowed customers to rent up to four movies instead of one, and there was no deadline either for return.

In 2000, Netflix introduced a new system that operated with a five-star rating, for twenty films in a bid to recommend movies to subscribers, in line with their tastes and preference. This information was crucial in helping the company plan out an effective marketing campaign.

The new arrangement was successfully accomplished the same year Netflix signed a shared revenue deal with Columbia, Tri-Star, and Warner Home Video.

New Year, New Netflix

A year later, in 2001, Netflix was funded by a venture capitalist, so that it could expand its business operations further. The founders expected an upsurge of 500,000 subscribers in demand, so the company offered a free trial that lasted for six weeks and could be signed up through an Internet Movie Database membership

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Once it reached 600,000 subscribers, Netflix offered an Initial Public Offering, or IPO, in 2002. The company made 5.5 million shares available for sale, at a $15 per share cost. This resulted in a massive amount of funding, reaching a staggering $82.5 million.

The capital raised was used to settle a debt of $14.1 million, and once that was done, the remaining amount was used to cover business development expenditures such as promotional and marketing campaigns.

These strategic moves led to the company changing its name to Netflix, Inc. Netflix’s success skyrocketed its membership, and by 2003, the platform boasted two million subscriptions, which jumped to twice that number in 2006 and then six million in 2006.

These numbers were unparalleled in the history of the movie rental industry, especially for a company as young as Netflix, only ten years old at that point.

Netflix Streaming Service Begins

Netflix continued with its success and launched a streaming service in 2007, called Watch Now, where consumers could access over one thousand movies. This new option enabled subscribers to stream movies on their computers or other devices, and immediately led to independent producers making deals with Netflix to stream their movies on the platform.

In 2008 and 2009, Netflix reached an astounding twelve million subscribers and signed contracts with Microsoft and Sony to allow their service to extend its streaming to Xbox and PlayStation.

The following year, Netflix expanded its services to Canada and partnered with Apple to allow streaming on iPad and iPhones. This action alone exploded Netflix subscriptions to twenty million users, a new record altogether.

In the following years, Netflix expanded to other countries, such as the UK, Ireland, Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, and other European countries. It also started collecting awards for its original series, and slowly dominated the streaming field.

The Evolution of the Netflix Logo

Netflix has changed its logo multiple times as the years have passed in order to fit with the evolving services it continued to offer. The original logo, first designed in 1997, had a theater vibe to it, depicted as a movie reel dividing the words Net and Flix, to signify what they were about.

By 2000, when the platform had already established itself as a recognized brand, the founders changed their logo for the first time. The new logo was much simpler and minimalistic as compared to the original design – now only represented by a red rectangle with the word ‘Netflix’ done in a white, uppercase font synonymous with the service and what it stood for.

In 2014, the red background was replaced with white, and the word ‘Netflix’ was redone in bold red. Now, their bold original designs have been traded for an unassuming but powerful icon – a large N – which adheres to a minimalistic theme and is representative of the global success of the company.

The History behind Netflix’s Logo

Netflix is a combination of two words ‘Net’ which is an abbreviation of the word Internet, and ‘Flix’, a derivative of Flicks, or movies. The company was an immediate success and transformed into a household streaming service, dominating the industry despite the presence of strong rivals.

Being an integral component of its impressive success, the Netflix logo evolved almost simultaneously with the platform’s rise to fame. One look at Netflix’s logo history will demonstrate to you the journey of the enterprise and how the logo design kept evolving as the platform grew from a small business to the giant media corporation it is now.

The Beginner’s Design

Netflix’s original logo was, shall we say, overly simple? It was created with one color, purple, with the name of the website inscribed in a simple font. A celluloid film curved around the letter ‘N’ and separated the letters, ‘T’ and ‘F’, on the design.

Three years later, in 2000, they changed the theme of the service, and the Netflix old logo was updated as well. This time, it was a solid color used in a black oval that was stretched between two yellow brackets.

The name, ‘Netflix’ was written in lowercase in sans-serif, in thin white lines, depicting a modern, fresh look. The dot on the ‘I’ was replaced by the image of a yellow television set, communicating the media company’s brand image. This logo was short-lived, however, and transformed again after just a few months.

Netflix’s Winning Logo

In 2001, the recognizable logo, which featured the word ‘Netflix’ on a white background, was done in the upper case of the same sans-serif font. This became the most distinguished logo design in Netflix’s logo history, and was truly reimagined to stand for the new brand offering.

The new logo carried on till the background changed from purple to red, with the same white font used on it. It proved to be the longest-running Netflix logo design until it was replaced, yet again, in 2014.

Another modification to the old Netflix logo came through in 2014, when a black background with a red font was introduced. These would soon become the signature colors associated with Netflix’s streaming service to this day.

This new Netflix logo was starker, crisper, and extremely eye-catching. It also stood for a complete theatrical experience, with the black symbolizing a dark theater and the word ‘Netflix’ stretched horizontally, to indicate a screen.

This popular design remained associated with the media platform until 2017, when it was once more improved to the latest design it is at present.

Netflix Today!

This up-to-the-minute design is arguably the best in Netflix’s logo history. It is undoubtedly a minimalist design, which features the letter N. Many believe that it was derived from an old Netflix logo, but actually it is not. This design resembles a ribbon that is folding in on itself to form the letter ‘N’.

The function of this new Netflix logo is to denote the integration of new devices such as tablets, phones, and iPods to the streaming service, so that it is recognizable on just about any multimedia gadget today.

Conclusion

The constant evolution of the business idea, the service offering, and the Netflix logo history is entwined. Armed with contemporary and innovative logos, Netflix has steadily conquered the streaming media industry.

Helmed by continuous development and business expansion transcending industries and borders, the platform is now recognized as a global brand providing some of the best content to its consumers today, thanks to its logo.

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