Minecraft is one of the most successful videogames in history. It really can’t be undervalued, because it didn’t just inspire millions of people to create content about it on the Internet. The title also inspired countless of other games, and many of these new products don’t even have much to do with the survival genre of Minecraft.

Meaning and History

Minecraft was conceptualized back in 2009, and that’s when the first version of this block-based endless survival gameplay was created. The whole premise is that all of the blocks present in the world (except the very bottom layer) can be dismantled.
Because a lot of it involves digging through caves and making stuff out of the resources you found, the name was an obvious choice.

2009 – 2009

The initial logo of Minecraft was developed when it was still deep in development. It featured a different style from today – the letters were tilted forwards, just like now, but they were also on different levels. And instead of the block-like letters, these were cartoony, fluid and round.
They overlapped each other and generally gave away a childish feeling. For instance, they were all painted light-green, azure and white from bottom to top – the usual landscape in the game.

2009 – 2011

For two years between the very first version and the release stage, Minecraft was a rapidly growing yet still a niche game. The developers didn’t care much about the branding – so the main logo was basically just the game title built in cobblestone (one of the most common blocks in the game) and tilted forwards a bit.
It’s likely not even an artistic product, the logo seems like it was built in their own game, and then the background was just cut. Suffice it to say, it does relay the purpose of the game well, the letters looked far from uniform – some ‘lines’ were thinner than needed, especially those that aren’t tilted.

2011 – 2015

In 2011, the devs decided to redraw the previous concept and make it look better and more impressive.
The letters were still seemingly made of stone and tilted forwards, but this time the characters, as well as lines, were sized better. Now, no one letter was wider than others simply because the game blocks work this way.
Stylistically, the new text was more cartoonish. It’s just a uniform grey color (with some black shading on the lower sides) with also some cracks all over the text. It’s also when they added a little Creeper face instead of the hole on the ‘A’ letter.

2012 – today

In 2012, Mojang (the company) introduced this new version. It’s basically the same as the one they made the year prior, but it’s not as heavily tilted now. Furthermore, they enhanced the outline which was previously slim. This time, it’s a thick black frame.
Both logos were used simultaneously for the longest time, although in different instances. By 2015, they changed all the remaining 2011 logos to look like this one.

Emblem and Symbol

The symbol most commonly used alongside the main logo (or even sometimes independently of it) is the simply dirt block from the game. It stands in a perfect isometric projection towards the looker, which basically means it’s slightly clockwise and then 45° sideways.